At the panel discussion “Ramp – (un)acceptance of people with disabilities in society”, Dusan Tomsic, special advisor for social protection within the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, focused on the process of deinstitutionalization.

“I have my own observation on this topic. It is often said that the people who live on this territory count as good, open, hospitable people. I wouldn’t agree. We are good people only if nothing is wrong with someone. In a situation if something like that happens, we are closed people. I think that we even raise the level of hate speech, arrogance and become very discriminating people. This is what our state needs to change and what we should pay attention to. The entire process of institutionalization is also changing people’s awareness… Lately I’ve been hearing that the process of deinstitutionalization is rushed, but I don’t agree. If the people don’t go out and start living and being part of the community, we will never be prepared for that to happen. The process alone has taught us as an administration that every person has their individual need and that we can’t be making collective services that will answer the requests of an entire community”, were some of the points given by Tomsic.

“I think that mayors should send the people working in the sectors of urbanism in their municipalities to a training, in the sense that if something is being built, prepared, that attention should be given to the accessibility, which is easier to be made in the phase of construction, then in already existing facilities”, added Tomsic.

The panel discussion “Ramp” included the participation of the Mayor of the City of Skopje, Petre Silegov, Blagica Dimitrovska from Inkluziva, Sandra Pesevska Mickovska, activist for rights of persons with disabilities, Vangel Trkaljanov from the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and Xhabir Deralla, CIVIL.

text editing: B. Jordanovska
camera: Atanas Petrovski
editing: Arian Mehmeti

Translation: Natasa Cvetkovska