Since its founding, the Tides project and fund has gifted over $2.7 million to 87 organizations in 14 countries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE         

Contact: Diana Samarasan, Director

Telephone: 617-261-4593

Email: dsamarasan(at)disabilityrightsfund.org

BOSTON, MA – The Disability Rights Fund (DRF) – a collaborative among donors and disability activists to support the human rights of people with disabilities around the world – announces 65 new grants totaling $1,382,050 to Disabled Persons' Organizations in eleven countries; 27 of these grants are to current grantees. Since its founding in 2008, DRF has gifted over $2.7 million to 87 different organizations in fourteen countries. DRF currently supports work in: Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru; Ghana, Namibia, Uganda; Bangladesh, India; and 14 Pacific Island countries: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

The grants support Disabled Persons' Organizations to raise awareness about the rights of people with disabilities, build coalitions and networks, and develop advocacy and monitoring activities, in connection with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  

DRF grantees share the goal of advancing the rights of people with disabilities at the country-level. Recent recipients include:

• A grassroots organization of women with disabilities addressing violence against women in Northern Uganda.
• An emergent Nicaraguan group of deaf blind people.
• A national umbrella organization in Papua New Guinea, campaigning for CRPD ratification.

The full grantee list will be posted on the DRF website, www.disabilityrightsfund.org/grantees.html and is available upon request.

"The CRPD is creating opportunities for the disability rights movement around the world; this new funding will significantly augment those efforts," stated DRF Co-Chair, William Rowland. DRF Director, Diana Samarasan, added "People with disabilities and DPOs around the world are raising their voices to claim rights long denied to them. DRF grants support and strengthen these calls for ‘nothing about us without us."

All grantees are selected after a rigorous review process which includes review by DRF’s Steering Committee, a committee composed of donor representatives and people with disabilities from the Global South.

DRF's donors include: an anonymous founding donor, Aepoch Fund, American Jewish World Service, the Australian Government’s International Development Assistance Agency – AusAID, the UK's Department for International Development, Open Society Institute, and The Sigrid Rausing Trust.       

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