Uniting Disabled Youth: Research, Empowerment and Participation – Developing a Methodology to Involve Disabled Youth in International Decision-Making Forums

Disabled young people are often invisible in local, national and international decision-making. This project seeks to address this through an innovative partnership between academia, disabled person-led organisations (DPOs) and disabled young people across the Global South and North. Specifically, the project team is looking to adapt a disabled young people–led research methodology to meet the cultural/political environment of the Global South. This methodology has been successfully used in England by the Children’s Commissioner to develop their submission to the UNCRPD as part of the UK shadow reporting process. Co-led by English disabled young researchers, the project team will work in partnership with a DPO in the Philippines to train a group of disabled young people to gather evidence on the enactment of their rights and its implications for the UN’s 2030 agenda. Learning from the Global South/North will be shared in order to empower disabled young people to be involved in decision-making at local, national and international levels.