ASP Director Joins Training and Exchange Workshop on UNCRPD

Executive Director Ranil Sorongon of Autism Society Philippines (ASP) was among the second group of Filipino delegates to participate in the Training and Exchange Workshop on Monitoring the United Nations Convention on the Rights on Persons with Disability (UNCRPD) Implementation in Geneva, Switzerland last September 19-24, 2011. Other Filipinos who are also members of the Philippine Coalition on the CRPD who joined the training-workshop were Mr. Ronnel del Rio of the Province of Batangas and Mr. Abner Manlapaz of Life Haven in Valenzuela City. The Filipinos were among the 16 participants coming from Argentina, Brazil, India, Nepal, and Uganda.

ASP Executive Director Ranilo Sorongon

The event was organized by the International Disability Alliance (IDA) with the support of the Open Society Institute and DPOD to support Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs) involvement in the monitoring of the CRPD and other human rights instruments. It aims to provide participants to have a deeper understanding of some of the more complex issues and provisions of the CRPD, get acquainted with the CRPD Committee work and interaction with States representatives and non government organizations (NGOs), and acquire more skills in the development of the parallel report.

Through IDA, the delegates were given the opportunity to witness the opening of the CRPD Committee session at the Palais des Nations and visit the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarter in Geneva to meet with the team of experts who authored the World Report on Disability.

Participants during Joins Training and Exchange Workshop

Likewise, the group acquired so much knowledge on human rights from the resource speakers of countries like Spain, Peru and Hungary, from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and of course from the personnel of IDA.

The five days activity in Geneva was very enlightening and productive for all the participants. Every minute was maximized to acquire new knowledge, new skills and develop a more positive attitude in promoting the rights of persons with disabilities.

The participants would like to thanks IDA, the sponsors and the staff especially Mr. Alex Cote and Ms. Tchaurea Fleury for all the hard work, patience, understanding, and for posing challenges to the delegates to become effective and efficient leaders.

A daily account of the of the activity and some insight will follow this general information of the event.