The European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) is a Europe-wide network of disabled
people, disabled people’s organisation as well as their non-disabled allies, with members
throughout Europe. ENIL has been working on the issue of multiple discrimination of
disabled people for the past three years. Double discrimination of disabled people who come
from one of the minority groups (ethnic, migrant, religious or sexual), as well as
discrimination of girls and disabled women and migrants, is still largely unrecognised and is
not something many disability organisations are focusing on. This is why ENIL applied for
and implemented the study session entitled “Understanding and countering multiple
discrimination faced by young people with disabilities in Europe”.
The project entailed a weeklong study session at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg
with the purpose of encouraging and supporting young disabled people to advocate for
human rights in their countries and at European level. Participants had an opportunity to gain
a better understanding of multiple discrimination and hate crime and acquire the skills to
develop a youth led ENIL campaign on tackling multiple discrimination.
As part of our aims and objectives for this study session we wanted to empower young
disabled people to counteract and prevent discrimination and to raise awareness of this
issue in their respective countries. In order to do that, it was very important that they were
given the opportunity to increase their competences knowledge on multiple discrimination,
hate crime and campaigning.
During the week-long study session, the following topics were presented and discussed:
Independent living and multiple discrimination – the history of the Independent Living
Movement, the Independent Living philosophy, what this means to the participants lives now
and in the future and how independent living can be affected by multiple discrimination;
European Network on Independent Living – the values and mission of our organisation,
the way we work and our activities in Europe;
Council of Europe – understanding what the Council of Europe does to promote the rights
of children and adults with disabilities, how these can be promoted by participants in their
own countries;
Multiple discrimination – what it is, the different types of discrimination that can be
encountered and how to identify and develop solutions to multiple discrimination;
Human Rights, with a focus on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (UN CRPD) – which human rights people with disabilities are entitled to and how
we can ensure that these rights are protected, using the international human rights system;
Hate crime and the prevention of discrimination – definition of hate crime, how to
counteract hate crime, the role of the Council of Europe and the European Union in
combating discrimination;
Self-advocacy – how to self-advocate and the skills necessary to do this;
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Discrimination and the intersectionality between human rights of different minority
groups – understanding that human rights apply to everyone regardless of their personal
characteristics or their background, importance of understanding of, and learning from the
experiences of different minority and discriminated groups;
Campaigning – different campaigning methods, how campaigns can influence positive
change, understanding different techniques which can be used to influence the public policy
and opinion;
Video production – using the knowledge learned throughout the study session to develop
short videos, story boarding and understanding of different techniques that can be used to
effectively convey a message in a video, promotion of the videos;
ENIL Youth Network- what is the follow up of the campaign after the study session, how
can the participants continue working together and what role do they see themselves in.
As a result of the study session, young disabled people have increased their capacity to
tackle multiple discrimination and hate crime and to advocate for the right to Independent
Living. We have also supported young disabled people to create a youth led ENIL Campaign
against discrimination including by the development of four videos by study session
particiants on multiple discrimination and hate speech ( available on the No Hate Speech
Campaign website). Finally, we were able to attract new members to the Independent Living
movement and put in place the foundations for a sustainable campaign against multiple
discrimination and hate crime led by the ENIL Youth Network.
