Healthlink Worldwide

Overview

Recent political changes in South East Europe have stimulated civil society activism and a degree of consciousness and empowerment amongst many groups, including Disabled People's Organisations (DPOs).

However, in public consciousness, legal rights and disability activism are at an early stage of development. Little or no information for disabled people exists, and there are few ideas of what this information might be like.

Disabled people need more information about the possibilities for education and training, the adaptations that facilitate independent living, and their legal rights and entitlements.

Sharing information and strengthening links
The SHARE-SEE partnership aims to build a community of regionally-based organisations in South East Europe in order to lead and contribute to the process of transforming the status of disability. It exists to promote the rights, full participation and equal opportunities of disabled people.

SHARE-SEE is a partnership between Handicap International and four local non-govermental organisations (NGOs) for people with disabilities: Polio Plus in Macedonia, the Centre for Independent Living and the Association of Disabled Students in Serbia, and IC Lotos in Bosnia.

In August 2002, SHARE-SEE asked Healthlink Worldwide to carry out a needs assessment for the development of a disability information system within the region. Healthlink Worldwide is a partner in Source International Support Centre and brings over 25 years of resource centre and information management expertise to the project.

The needs assessment findings included:

• A multi-lingual information system is essential, so that it is accessible to all users. SHARE-SEE partners need to develop a set of criteria for selecting essential material for translation and deciding which languages the material should be translated into.
• The information needs and use of information by DPOs and disability professionals and researchers were found to be very different. Therefore the two groups need different types of information and ways of accessing it. However DPOs need to be the principal focus. Priorities include information that emphasises the transformation of the lives of disabled people, and a toolbox of ideas and practical solutions to real life questions for disabled people.
• Source has provided guidance on appropriate database and web design software for SHARE-SEE. (This is one of the areas covered in the Resource centre manual.) Guidelines also need to be developed by the partners on how to establish links between the SHARE-SEE information system and other systems and sites.

Much of the learning from Source has been captured in Healthlink Worldwide's Resource Centre Manual, which has been used as a guide to setting up and linking resource centres around the world.

The Resource Centre Manual can be accessed from the Source website:

Read the Resource Centre Manual online or download as PDF