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VULKAN, Magazine for people with special needs
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* AWARENES RAISING
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INNOVATIVE AND HIGH PROFILE PUBLIC CAMPAIGNS AND LOBYING INITIATIVES
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promoting equal rights and opportunities for disabled people and the collective responsibility of society as a whole to ensure this happens.
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* To Recognise the Truth
a civic education campaign for the recent local elections which trained disability NGOs in how to recognise the phenomenon of cross party political manipulation with regard to disability issues and how to lobby for their rights.
* Unequal Treatment is Equal to Illegal Treatment
a high profile grass roots project, highlighting the issue of physical accessibility to public buildings. Awareness raising to highlight each individual’s responsibility to ensure physical access to publicly used buildings. The focus was on facilitating local communities on a nation-wide basis to identify inaccessible buildings and to build ramps, using their own resources. A total of 85 ramps have been built as a direct result of the project and we have promises of a further 40 to be built in the near future.
* Kapijik
a lobbying campaign complimenting “Unequal Treatment is Equal Treatment”. We are approaching Macedonian companies and organisations and asking them to make their outlets physically accessible to disabled people. At the time of writing we have a commitment for this initiative from such entities as The Post Office, the three largest Banks, Macedonian Telecom, Mobimak, the largest insurance company. To date a total of 800 outlets...
* The Meaning of Life
a series of innovative and high profile street theatre activities. Using humour and irony to transfer to communicate the violations of human rights that disabled people in Macedonia encounter; stimulating and provoking thought and action in the wider community to facilitate the necessary changes to ensure full equality and integration.
* Nobody’s Perfect
an innovative awareness raising campaign promoting 2003, European Year for People with Disability. Featuring recognised “icons” of beauty across the ages: Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, Marilyn Monroe and Spiderman. All will be pictured using prosthetic aids and are seen to continue to be beautiful.
* We are One World
a civic education campaign for an awareness raising photographic exhibition that focused on the daily life of the residents in the Special Institute of Demir Kapija, drawing comparisons with the lives of disabled people in the wider community. In collaboration with a locally based disability NGO, Polio Plus arranged guided tours of the exhibition for local schools. The exhibition attracted a great deal of interest: more than 20% of the population of Tetovo.
* Vulkan Magazine
an awareness campaign to a monthly magazine, which provides a real and tangible service to people with special needs, enabling them to be directly informed on issues that relate to them and impact on their daily lives. The magazine is a deliberate mix of disabled and wider interest issues in order to raise awareness in the wider community whilst at the same time modelling integration in its truest sense.
* Peace Protest
in 2001 when there was the threat of civil war, we placed full page advertisements in all newspapers in the Republic of Macedonia with the simple message: “Most organizations want 100,000 new members. We don’t. We are disabled people. Say NO to the War!”
* Amendment 16
an awareness raising protest against social injustice. The Ohrid Agreement tabled 15 amendments to the Constitution. We placed posters in key locations in Skopje and wrote letters to the press with the suggestion that an additional amendment is inserted – that all references to the Republic of Macedonia being a social state should be removed.
* DUEL
an Aid Song, with accompanying TV spot, about facing life, written in the manner of an open conversation between a disabled person and his life. The song is about a disabled man having come to terms with his disability, he has looked it in the face and recognised it for what it is and what it brings, and as such it no longer frightens him. He has learned to live with it. The message at the end of the song is that disability can do what it will to the singer, but only he can live this. The song is produced in Macedonian, Albanian and English.
* Vulkan Foundation
a series of annual awards designed to affirm, stimulate and support the creativity of disabled people in the Republic of Macedonia. The approach is that special needs lead to special skills which can be a rich source of creativity which should be both encouraged and shared. The awards will be in the following fields: literature (poetry and prose), music, art, and science. A further award will recognise the work of an individual or organisation that has made an outstanding contribution towards disability issues in Macedonia – this award will not be limited to people with special needs.
* Mitja Has to Walk
a one-hour documentary featuring a young man’s battle to be able to walk. It is set within the context of our project against architectural barriers: Unequal Treatment is Equal to Illegal Treatment. The message is that success can be possible if there is the will to find a way.
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Design and maintenance:
 Center for Advanced Communications