France

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I/ ICOM

For a long time, others have spoken for people with disabilities.  Now, they intend speaking for themselves. A lot remains to be done in order to reorient policies of assistance towards measures based on equal opportunities. It is in this area that our programme operates and bases its strategy. It is essential to take this ever-increasing demand for autonomy into account, with an increased presence in the consultative bodies at regional and national levels.

Our French programme was set up in 1991 and initially focused on developing the work undertaken by the Association of Families of Physically Disabled Children. Convinced that the real integration of disabled people must be spontaneous rather than technical, our programme was designed to be a support to all other activities facilitating the social integration of disabled children, but also as a melting pot, from which new initiatives could be created or developed. 

Our aim is to contribute to social innovation in France, by encouraging the emergence or reinforcement of initiatives promoting the integration of disabled people through:

• backing innovative projects (e.g.: technological platform, visio-training programme, counselling service for young people with disabilities on their emotional and sexual lives, school integration assistants service, computer centre)
• conceptualisation based on previous projects. The programme must capitalise on its own experiences so as to act as a vector for transmitting experiences to our other programmes.
• our role as a “vector of influence” for professionals or the general public to obtain better consideration for disabled people. We deploy resources in order to move disability-related issues forward at local, national and European level. This can be through publications, participation in different professional and institutional networks, contributions to working groups and other key bodies, etc.

However, Handicap International is not an association of people with disabilities, but an association working for disability. Its mission is not therefore to be the spokesperson of people with disabilities, but to act as a vector for them.

II/ DECLIC

The project for a monthly magazine began in 1992 when our team identified families’ crucial need for cross-disciplinary, practical and valorising information, in order to benefit from a better quality of life with their disabled child on a day-to-day basis. Déclic, the magazine of family and disability, was then launched and, since 1997, it has been published as part of our activities in promoting the citizenship of disabled people and their families. 

The Déclic's mission is to produce 6 issues a year of a magazine destined for the parents of children with disabilities - whatever the nature of the disability. The objectives of the publication are to:

• publish all daily, medical, legal and administrative information necessary for looking after children with disabilities
• allow the families to take full control of their lives by offering them choices through the diffusion of practical information
• establish networks of families who have created or found appropriate solutions for living more easily with disability on a daily basis.
• be the spokesperson of families.

Since 1998, Déclic has also been running a national competition with the help of a national DIY chain, to collect and diffuse the inventiveness and ingenuity of parents in improving the daily lives of their children. Every year, the "DIY Dad" competition awards prizes for the best inventions and adaptations for daily life and the home. At the end of the competition, a guide of the 20 best ideas is published and distributed through outlets and associations for people with disabilities.

Finally, Déclic and  the Association for Disabled Young People and Adults have joined together to create the Observatory for Families in Handicap Situations, which will have three main functions:

• conserving the expression and the experience of families, by starting up a collection of documentation grouping together memoirs, diaries, correspondence from associations, photographs and audio-visual material, etc. in a public archives centre
• valorising the knowledge of families by researching these documents and publishing the results of this work, in collaboration with the main French university networks.
• leading and co-ordinating a network of families involved in the conservation of their archives and in the transmission of their specific experience and knowledge.