Estonia and Kazakhstan partner for the rights of disabled people

With support from the Open Estonia Foundation, an Estonian-Kazakh civil society cooperation project will be launched today in Tallinn, aimed at advocating the rights of disabled people in the two countries. During their one-week visit to Estonia, experts from Kazakhstan will meet Estonian civil servants and specialists and get an overview of the Estonian welfare system for people with disabilities.

The project manager Maarika Miil says the complicated economic situation has created an urgent need to adopt innovative solutions and create coalitions for common goals. According to Miil, the Kazakh guests are particularly interested in Estonia’s experience in developing state-civil society partnership and delegating services for disabled people to the non-governmental sector. “We find it of utmost importance to strengthen the capacity of NGOs uniting disabled people to provide services and be a reliable partner to the state,” Maarika Miil stresses.

The initiative is financed by the Open Estonia Foundation’s East-East: Partnership Beyond Borders program. In August, the same project will take specialists from Estonia to a return visit to Kazakhstan.

Additional information:

Maarika Miil
Project manager
Tel.: +372 50 66 852
E-mail: mmiil@hot.ee

East-East program: http://www.oef.org.ee/en/programs/3/