Miriam O'Callaghan presents certificates to self-advocates who completed DFI's media training programme

We had a great start to the week with a celebration of our self-advocates who completed a media training course with DFI over four Mondays in March.

We were delighted to welcome Miriam O'Callaghan to present the certificates to the class. Miriam offered wonderful encouragement to the self-advocates and highlighted the importance of sharing their story as the experts in disability and especially the lived experience.

Congratulations to the Class of 2023 from all of us in DFI!

Conor O'Donnell from Kildare
Michael Meere from Limerick
John Doyle from Limerick
Catherine Cooper from Dublin
Dympna Minaguchi from Mullingar
Shannon O'Farrell-Molloy from Wexford
Brian D'Arcy from Galway
Karen Smith from Dublin

With thanks to our Member Organisations CRC, NCBI, RehabCare, DSI and BCIL for their support of the self-advocates to do the training.

What is self-advocacy? 

Self-advocacy is essentially the action of communicating and representing one’s needs, views or interests. It is about understanding your rights, speaking up, taking action and taking control of one’s life. Where people cannot speak up for themselves they are supported to do so by others. Effective self-advocacy will mean that a person has good information, training, the right support when needed, opportunities to learn by doing, confidence in themselves and will understand that self-advocacy can be at an individual or group level.

ENDS