Get Involved!
How You Can Help
Feeling inspired? Join us! Here are some of the ways you can help – we welcome your ideas and suggestions for our work in support of the CRPD and its Optional Protocol.
Stay Informed and Contribute Your Ideas!
Use RatifyNow’s website and explore our links page to learn more about the treaty and to keep up with grassroots advocacy efforts worldwide. You can keep track of the CRPD ratification progress by checking on the growing list of ratifying nations.
You can read the text of the Convention and its Optional Protocol here.
We want to hear from you! Send news of your efforts to our submission email, and we’ll post them so others can learn from your success and avoid any mistakes you made along the way. By pooling our knowledge and experience, each of us can become more effective advocates and work together to maximize the reach of the CRPD’s disability rights protections.
1. Organize! Build Awareness and Promote Advocacy in Your Community
- Amplify your efforts to support treaty ratification by asking others to join you.
- Enlist the help of organizations you belong to: First, talk to members of organizations you belong to about how your group can work to support the treaty. Volunteer to:
- make a presentation about the CRPD and how your group can support grassroots ratification efforts, and offer to lead a committee to brainstorm ways to do so.
- be the coordinator for your organization’s ratification work,
- be your organization’s liaison to a local or regional coalition to promote treaty ratification, or
- launch a fundraising drive among your organization’s members to donate money to RatifyNow or other ratification efforts.
2. Educate your religious organization and enlist their help
Many religions champion the rights of the poor and disenfranchised. In every nation, people with disabilities are over-represented among the poorest of the poor. Ask for an opportunity to address others who share your faith, and educate your counterparts about how the treaty will fight poverty by guaranteeing people with disabilities equal rights to education, employment, housing, and healthcare.
At the end of your presentation, ask your audience to brainstorm about ways your group can contribute to local, regional, and international efforts to maximize treaty ratification. Send around a signup list for volunteers, and with the help of others set up periodic meetings to keep the group inspired, active, and effective.
3. Ask for help from local groups you don’t belong to.
Survey your community to identify sympathetic organizations that fight poverty or promote civil or human rights. Then:
- Volunteer to make a short presentation at their next meeting, and point out how treaty ratification fits within the group’s mission. Distribute educational flyers from RatifyNow and its allies’ websites. Whenever possible, ask for specific help with on-going activities and with public education. For example, ask the group to issue a call for letters and telephone calls to support a local referendum in support of the treaty, or ask for a copy of the organization’s press list so you can build your own list of reporters and assignment editors who’ve expressed interest in civil or human rights issues.
- Offer to write a brief article about the treaty and local ratification efforts for the group’s snail mail or electronic newsletter, and include copy the group can permanently post on its website, so visitors can learn about the treaty and how to get involved in local advocacy efforts.
- Offer to keep the group updated on your ratification efforts and maintain regular contact with its members to keep them educated and inspired to support your work.
Key targets: your local independent living center for people with disabilities, Protection & Advocacy agency, local civil and human rights groups, religious groups, and local United Nations support chapters. Click here and here for contact information for local independent living centers and Protection & Advocacy groups.
4. Create Coalitions to Build Our Movement
Just as a group can amplify the efforts of an individual, a coalition can unify a community and coordinate a powerful advocacy effort in support of the CRPD. If a civil or human rights coalition already exists in your community, ask them to add treaty ratification to their mission.
If no such coalition exists, work with the leadership of sympathetic organizations to create one. It’s easiest to organize coalitions to support specific advocacy goals, such as a vote to pass local referenda or a press conference to announce a local advocacy effort.
5. Enact Local Referenda to Support the CRPD and its Optional Protocol
Local activists have written and enacted local referenda in support of the treaty. Click here for a list of referenda language, a description of the successful strategies used to enact them, and contact information so you can get in touch with the activists responsible for each referendum. RatifyNow members learn from each other by publicizing our efforts and sharing strategies for success.
6. Add Treaty Ratification to Your Political Party’s Platform and Ask Candidates for Elective Office to Pledge Their Support for the CRPD.
Raise the visibility of the treaty and win support by asking your political party to add prompt treaty ratification of the CRPD and its Optional Protocol without reservations to its party platform. Read about local platform advocacy efforts here.
Elections provide an excellent opportunity to educate the public and win support from candidates. Ask candidates to publicly pledge their support for prompt treaty ratification. You can read about the efforts of disability rights advocates to win support from U.S. presidential candidates for treaty ratification here.
7. Use the Press to Educate the Public
Traditional and new media are the most effective way to educate the public about the CRPD and its potential to dramatically improve the lives of people with disabilities. There are many ways to use the press, and you can learn more about them by clicking here.
Press advocacy includes:
- Getting reporters to write stories about the CRPD and ratification efforts. Local press is eager for local stories: be sure to include what your organization, coalition, educational institution, or religious group is doing to promote treaty awareness and ratification. Click here for sample press releases.
- Meet with your news outlet’s editorial board. Editorial boards meetings can help persuade a news outlet to assign reporters to cover local ratification efforts, and can also persuade the news outlet to write its own editorial urging treaty ratification.
- Create your own press. Write letters to the editor, newspaper op-eds, and broadcast commentaries to educate the public about the treaty and why your nation should ratify it. Click here for sample op-eds, commentaries, and Letters to the Editor.
- Ask your local TV and radio stations to air Public Service Announcements and programming about the CRPD. RatifyNow will soon add broadcast-quality podcasts to its website. We will make them available to broadcast stations at no cost, so check back with us soon to get our latest advocacy tools!
- Volunteer to appear on talk shows. Talk show hosts are always eager for guests who can provide their audience with interesting information on current events. Take the time to learn about the CRPD and its Optional Protocol, and then contact your local talk shows to volunteer an appearance. If you’re too shy to volunteer yourself, contact RatifyNow and we’ll provide a news guest for your local talk show.
8. Use the Internet to Educate the Public
Add a CRPD information page to your website, and ask organizations you belong to do the same. The information on RatifyNow’s website is available for download and reproduction, as long as you include a note stating that the document was developed by RatifyNow and include our website address for your readers.
9. Engage Local Schools and Colleges to Educate the Public
Offer to make a presentation at your local school, college, or law school about why a treaty is needed, what it would accomplish, and why your nation should ratify both the CRPD and its Optional Protocol. You can make the presentation yourself, or team up with an experienced RatifyNow speaker. We’ll be posting treaty presentations soon, so check back to download a sample presentation and handouts.
In addition to asking for the opportunity to make a presentation, you can also suggest the school add a class on disability rights. Another way to enlist the help of educational institutions is to offer to add a treaty component to existing civil and human rights classes, or to classes that discuss international law and the role of the United Nations. Interested activists and educators can contact RatifyNow for sample curricula and educational texts.
10. Help Us Raise Funds
Organize a charity event – a bake sale, a bike ride, a benefit concert. Use the funds you raise for local treaty ratification efforts, or donate part of your proceeds to RatifyNow. We expect to receive tax exempt status shortly, so your donations will be tax deductible. Contact us for further information, and for help in planning your fundraising effort. To make a donation now, please click here.
11. Join RatifyNow, and Send Us Your Advocacy Ideas!
Our membership is open to anyone who supports the CRPD and its Optional Protocol. We need your ideas on ways to support grassroots treaty ratification efforts, and we’ll add them to this page! Click here to contact us. For information on why (and how) to become a member of RatifyNow, please click here.
Nothing About Us Without Us!