International Renaissance Foundation

Human rights—for persons living with disabilities, for persons caught in the criminal justice system, for patients in the health care and mental health systems—were a central focus of the International Renaissance Foundation (Ukraine) in 2007. In September, the foundation, in support of the National Assembly of People with Disabilities, a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization, launched a campaign for ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. As a result, Ukraine’s president authorized the signing of the convention. The foundation will continue to support the campaign until the national parliament ratifies the convention and will then support monitoring its implementation.

The foundation supported and promoted a paper on criminal justice reform that called for reforming the entire criminal justice system. The paper gained the approval of the president and a presidential advisory body, the National Commission on Strengthening Democracy and Asserting the Rule of Law.

In public health, the foundation supported the formulation, by public authorities and nongovernmental organizations, of a Ministry of Health draft order defining standards for protecting human rights in patient care, including the rights of psychiatric patients. The foundation is working to create an interdepartmental working group to review Ukrainian legislation on psychiatric aid, develop draft legislation amending current law, hold a broad public discussion of the drafts, and increase legislative support for the amendments.

In harm reduction, the foundation focused on substitution treatment and emphasized the positive role those persons affected by drugs and HIV and AIDS can play in advocacy. One effort brought a nongovernmental organization, the Drop-in Center, together with two groups of substitution-therapy clients, billboard companies, and advertising agencies to promote substitution therapy. A special interactive and user-friendly website will be dedicated to substitution therapy in Ukraine, permitting site visitors to ask questions of specialists.

The foundation and OSI’s Education Support Program collaborated to promote better education for children with disabilities by addressing the problem of stereotypes.