Every Person Counts – See ability, not disability

“Epic Arts opens our eyes to our common humanity so that all of us can flourish.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

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April 2013

Kampot Province, Cambodia – Artistic expression is a common human characteristic, unlocking creative potential and defying borders. Epic Arts, a disability-arts NGO (http://www.epicarts.org.uk), works towards equality by reaching out to people with physical and learning disabilities and provides deaf education and education for children with learning disabilities as well as vocational training in Kampot Province, Cambodia. Through art, Epic Arts seeks to live out the values of inclusion, understanding, justice and equality.

The organization celebrates the richness of diversity through dance and theatre performances and creative workshops. Additionally, it runs a café, selling handicrafts produced by people with impairments. The café not only offers employment to the disabled, but also acts as a social hub for people with disabilities.

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Students of the Women’s Media Centre produced a short documentary on the work of Epic Arts with support from the DW Academy (http://blogs.dw-akademie.de/asia/2013/01/09/reporting-about-people-with-disabilities/) and the GIZ Social Health Protection Project.

On behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, GIZ supports the Royal Government of Cambodia in disability inclusion in the development process. With the government’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, disability inclusion assumes a more prominent role in development cooperation programmes, to ensure that the most vulnerable groups in society benefit from poverty reduction and development. To promote the inclusion of people with or vulnerable to disabilities the GIZ’s Social Health Protection Project deploys a mainstreaming approach in all its areas of intervention and supports selected, targeted activities in close collaboration with Handicap International Cambodia and other organisations representing people with disabilities, such as Epic Arts.

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Advocating for inclusive health services

The GIZ Social Health Protection Project will further cooperate with Epic Arts in awareness rising activities and advocating for inclusive health services in the province of Kampot, one of the project’s target-areas.  GIZ Social Health Protection Project seeks to involve people with disabilities and civil society as much as possible in local processes of health sector development and to complement existing efforts.

For more contact:

Dr. Heike Krumbiegel

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: + 855 23 88 44 76

 

To view the short documentary about the work of Epic Arts, visit GIZ Cambodia’s YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/gizcambodia

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All activities are implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).