– The British academic was the keynote speaker at the event that kicked off the work of this interdisciplinary research center on disability, funded by ANID.
Santiago, March 23, 2023 – With an auditorium full of people interested in the inclusion and social participation of people with disabilities, the renowned academic and researcher from the United Kingdom, Tom Shakespeare, gave the master class “Disability and Citizenship” at the inauguration of the interdisciplinary research center Núcleo Milenio DISCA.
“I think this is the beginning of something really incredible and very great for Chile and this region,” said the academic at the beginning of his speech. “It is fascinating for research in disability -not only in Chile, but all over the world-, that they have funds, that they have a project, that they can meet with all this technical expertise and achieve results. I want to go back and find out what they have discovered.”
The director of the DISCA Millennium Nucleus, Florencia Herrera Oesterheld, emphasized that this center “was born out of the need for empirical, updated and quality research on disability to inform public policy. We seek to understand how people with disabilities construct and negotiate citizenship in the areas of political participation, the exercise of sexuality and reproduction, and access to health. We know that we are ambitious, because the debt is great and there is much work to be done”.
For her part, the Head of the Millennium Department and Frontier Science Initiatives of the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID), Nicole Ehrenfeld Stolzenbach, said that “DISCA is a very special project for Milenio, because, for the first time, a multidisciplinary team actively involves people with disabilities in generating knowledge in this area. It is a project that, for three years, will seek to delve deeper into a subject that has been little studied so far by academia. The project will allow us to broaden knowledge and advance towards the protection of rights, the improvement of the welfare of people with disabilities and promote their participation in all areas of social, economic and political life of the country”.
The National Director of Senadis, Daniel Concha Gamboa, added that “from the Service we continue working so that from the State we advance in inclusive public policies with a rights-based approach towards the population with disabilities and their families, in accordance with the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Chile. And for this, it is transcendental to strengthen public-private alliances and with civil society, to continue in tune, listening to the communities, and preparing ourselves and promoting a more inclusive society from our fields of action”.
Mauricio “Cutto” López, part of the council of experts for experience of the DISCA Millennium Nucleus, also took part in the activity. “We are people who have dedicated ourselves to working for inclusion and full participation in our communities, we will play an active and participatory role in DISCA’s activities and we will bring the needs of our communities to the center of the discussion, as should always happen in the processes that concern and involve us,” he said.
Tom Shakespeare’s master class was part of the inauguration of the Disability and Citizenship Millennium Nucleus (DISCA), an interdisciplinary research center funded by ANID, focused on the study of the processes and mechanisms through which people with disabilities become citizens.
The DISCA Millennium Nucleus promotes research for and with people with disabilities and is directed by a researcher with a disability, has a board of experienced experts and several other members of the scientific and administrative team are people with disabilities, including Tom Shakespeare himself.
Tom Shakespeare is director of the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK, and is part of the DISCA Millennium Nucleus, as a senior researcher. During his visit to Chile, he participated in several meetings with national academics and researchers.
In addition, he is one of the authors of the World Report on Disability (2011) developed by WHO, has conducted research in the UK and Africa, exploring the social and economic consequences of disability, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio and The Lancet.
The masterclass is available on the Núcleo Milenio Disca YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/fEz4QRQ4TS4.