AMERICAN CORNERS IN SERBIA - Treatment of Persons with Disabilities

American Center Nis
Would like to invite you to
TREATMENT OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
presentation by
Erin Richardson & Biljana Janjic
U.S. Embassy Belgrade NGO VelikiMali

Friday, March 5 at 4 p.m.

Please note that the presentation will take place at the premises of the Public Library "Stevan Sremac", Borivoja Gojkovica 8, Nis

Erin Richardson is a mother of three children, including a nine-year old son with autism, a lawyer, and a disability advocate. Her work in the United States has focused on assisting families and children obtain appropriate educational services pursuant to federal and state laws that provide educational rights to students with disabilities. Ms. Richardson's experience raising and advocating for her own son has inspired her to dedicate her professional life to the promotion of the rights of students with disabilities within the educational context. She is particularly interested in the subject of inclusive education, and has fought for many students (including her own son) to be educated alongside their typical peers in regular education classrooms. Ms. Richardson has resided with her family in Belgrade for one year, during which she has been involved in disability advocacy on a volunteer basis for Mental Disabilities Rights Initiative-Serbia.

Biljana Janjic is Executive and Advocacy manager in the Initiative for Inclusion VelikiMali from Pancevo, NGO working on promoting and protecting rights of children with disabilities, especially to education and life within the family. She has been active in advocating for inclusive education for seven years and participated in many programs and projects aimed at changing anti-discrimination and educational legislation in Serbia, formulating policy documents, monitoring the child’s rights, publishing reports, organising advocacy activities and networking. Ms Janjic is editor of several publications about rights of children with disabilities and trainer at many seminars/trainings for civil society organisations, institutions and the media about inclusion and human rights.

In 2009, she was engaged by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia on preparing functional model of implementing inclusive education in Serbia in accordance with the new Law on basics of education system.