A representative of the NGO Mladiinfo Montenegro attended the CEDEM conference, on December 25, 2020, where the results of the project “Multisectoral approach to the protection of the rights and fundamental freedoms of persons with disabilities!”, were presented.
The conference was opened by the CEDEM project coordinator, Matija Miljanić.
“Montenegro is defined in its Constitution as a civil, ecological, democratic state with social justice based on the rule of law, and as such it is a signatory to a large number of agreements and international treaties that are directly applicable in Montenegro. Therefore, we have signed a large number of contracts that directly concern the rights of persons with disabilities”, said Miljanić.
Miljanić said that, when it comes to groups at risk, CEDEM’s research on patterns and levels of discrimination in Montenegro, conducted in cooperation with the European Union and the Council of Europe, shows that members of the Roma and Egyptian (RE) population are at the highest risk of discrimination and people with disabilities are also highly exposed to discriminatory behaviors.
The representative of CEDEM, Dijana Bošković, said that within the project, three theatrical interactive workshops for high school students in Bijelo Polje, Kolašin and Žabljak on the rights of persons with disabilities were realized, a promotional film from the workshops was made, a practical policy study “Guidelines for media coverage of LSI in Montenegro” was made.
Dijana Bošković also said that the goal of this project was to contribute to greater respect for the rights of persons with disabilities by strengthening the professional capacities of all relevant institutions dealing with the position of persons with disabilities and raising awareness of the professional and lay public about the importance of protection against discrimination.
She also said that we must not and cannot experience disability exclusively as a personal, but also as a social and economic problem.
“The struggle for the realization of basic human rights of persons with disabilities as such is part of the struggle for the general well-being of society, as well as for the realization of general human rights”, Bošković concluded.
The director of the NGO ATAK, Vasko Raičević, spoke about theatrical interactive workshops for high school students in Bijelo Polje, Kolašin and Mojkovac and explained that the theater worker Augusto Boal in the 50s, 60s in Brazil devised the concept of forum theater, believing that through that concept people learn how to change the world.
He explained that the participants in the workshops practice a certain situation, and the situation is such that there is always someone who is an oppressor and someone who suffers oppression.
“The situation is set and, through the game, modeling is found on how to get out of that problematic situation. Boal gave one instruction, and that is that actors can change, to find different ways to solve the situation, but he thought that one who plays the oppressor should never be replaced, because there are no such solutions. It would be as if some higher power would remove the problem, which is not the case in real life”, Raičević explained.
He said that the goal is to free workshop participants from traumatic approaches through play and to come up with important topics that need to be addressed.
He pointed out that he was surprised by the level of awareness and the way of thinking of the young generations in Montenegrin places that have been left aside in some way.
“The thoughts of these young people about the future were directed towards leaving Montenegro, which is devastating. There is a great untapped potential”, Raičević concluded.
