Independent Living Centre Kathmandu
CIL-Kathmandu

Name of Organization : Independent Living Centre for Persons with Disabilities (CIL-Kathmandu)
Date of Registration : No 145./ 2063-05-08, 24 August 2006
Address : Post box no. 1098, Jwagal – 10, Kupondol, Lalitpur
Contact : Phone +977-1-5011087, Fax 5526855
Email : info@cil.org.np , Website: www.cil.org.np
Registration : Registered in District Administration Office, Kathmandu,
Registration Affiliation : Social Welfare Council, Affiliation No. 20380, Date of Affiliation – 2063/05/20, 4 September 2006

Introduction of the Organization
CIL-Kathmandu is completely non-profitable and non political self help organization entirely run by persons with disabilities. This is a non governmental organization established to work for the promotion and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities (PWDs) through the concept of independent living. The term ‘Independent Living’ as defined by people with disabilities does not mean doing things for yourself, or living on your own. It means having choice and control over the assistance and/or equipment/assistive devices needed for daily life and having access to amenities that society has to offer such as housing, transport, health services, employment, as well as entertainment, education and training opportunities. Independent Living (IL) is a vision, a philosophy and a movement of persons with disabilities to promote and protect the human rights of PWDs. It interprets disability in social model and rights based approach. The concept of Independent Living was born on California University in the 1970s, the movement spread to Europe and Asia in the 1980s, and has since reached around the globe and changed the way people view and respond to disability.

In Nepal, CIL-Kathmandu has been working basically in policy advocacy for increasing the participation of PWDs in the decision making process, peer counseling to the disabled persons, personal assistant services (PAS), independent living program (ILP) in terms of training on daily living skills etc.

History of Foundation
As an organization CIL-Kathmandu started its work on disability rights since 2005. In the beginning the first initiation to promote the concept of independent living in Nepal was brought by disabled persons in the leadership of Mr. Krishna Gautam (a person with physical disabilities). When Mr. Gautam came back to Nepal after the completion of 10 months 'DUSKIN Leadership Training" from Japan he took this initiation with the support of some other experienced and energetic disabled youth. Since Mr. Gautam has gained good knowledge on Independent Living Concept during his training period he was quite enthusiastic to promote this concept in Nepal. The main objective behind this effort was to shift the paradigm of disability from charity based to rights based. In 2005 the political situation Nepal was not favourable to work in right based movement. The whole nation was suffering by the extreme phase of arm conflict and on the other hand there was direct ruling of King. In the leadership of seven party's alliance the people of Nepal were in the preparation of peoples' movement to liberate the country from the cruel claws of autocracy. In this situation CIL-Kathmandu also thought to show its solidarity with the physical involvement of persons with disabilities in the movement. In the April of 2006 all Nepalese came on the road for agitation against and CIL-Kathmandu also showed its adventurous contribution in the movement on behalf of civil society by involving PWDs in the great peoples' movement.

After the success of peoples' movement this organization was legally registered in the district administration office, Kathmandu in August 2006 along with the changing political scenario.

Organizational Structure of CIL-Kathmandu
Current Executive Committee of CIL-Kathmandu

S.N.	Name	Sex	Post	Disability
1.	Palsang Lama	Male	President	Physical Disabled
2.	Tek Bahadur Gurung	Male	Vice-President	Physical Disabled
3.	Krishna Gautam	Male	Secretary General	Physical Disabled
4.	Ganesh Bahadur Khatri	Male	Secretary	Physical Disabled
5.	Dhrubahari Neupane	Male	Treasure	Visual Disability
6.	Purni Lama	Female	Sub-Treasure	Physical Disabled
7.	Bhoj Raj Shrestha	Male	Member	Physical Disabled
8.	Geeta Limbu	Female	Member	Physical Disabled
9.	Krishna Raj Chaudhary	Male	Member	Physical Disabled
10.	Anjana KC	Female	Member	Physical Disabled
11.	Uday Bahadur Limbu	Male	Member	Physical Disabled
12.	Deepak KC	Male	Member	Physical Disabled
13.	Indra Prasad Upadhya	Male	Member	Physical Disabled

Advisory Committee

1. Laxman Prasad Aryal
   Ex-Judges of Supreme Court and Coordinator of Interim Constitution drafting committee
2. Dr. Shiv Raj Lohani
   Special Education Specialist
3. Dr. Sumitra Manadhar
   Social Activist and President of NCARD
4. Dr. Bal Gopal Baidhya
   Planning Expert and Ex member of National Planning Commission
5. Hon. Kamala Pant
   CA member and Former Minister of the Ministry of Women Children and Social Welfare
6. Charan Prasai
   Human Right Activist, President of Human Rights Joint Forum, Former president of Amnesty International
7. Shayam Sundar Sharma
   Joint Secretary, Government of Nepal
8. Usha Pokhrel
   Social Activist
9. Guna Raj Luitel
   Journalist, Nagarik Dainik Daily
10. Malla K. Sundar
    Human Right Activist, Ex-Member of Legislative Parliament
11. Pradip Pokhrel
    Human Right Activist, President of HUDEP, Ex-President of Amnesty International
12. Shiv Prasad Poudel
    Lawyer, Program Coordinator Save the Children Norway

Paid Staffs:

S.N.	Name	Sex	Post	Full/Part time
1.	Man Bahadur Chaudhary	Male	Accountant officer	Full time
2.	Ramesh Neupane	Male	AttendantCoordinator	Full time
3.	Sonika Dhakal	Female	Peer Councilor	Part Time

Voluntarily Involved Human Resource

S.N.	Name	Sex	Post	Ful/Part Time
1.	Krishna Gautam	Male	Program Planning & Development Coordinator	Full Time
2.	Bhoj Raj Shrestha	Male	Advocacy & Public Relation Coordinator	Full Time
3.	Dhrubahari Neupane	Male	Human Right & Finance Coordinator	Full Time
4.	Ganesh Bahadur Khatri	Male	Information & Communication Coordinator	Full Time
5.	Palasang Lama	Male	Organization & Accessibility Coordinator	Full Time
6.	Deepak KC	Male	Training Coordinator	Full Time
7.	Krishna Raj Chaudhary	Male	;Attendant Dispatch Coordinator	Full Time
8.	Tek Bahadur Gurung	Male	Women Empowerment Coordinator	Part Time
9.	Manish Prasai	Male	Program & Management Consultant	Part Time

Network of Organization This organization has its own network in 8 districts across the five development regions.

S.N.	Name of Organization	Focal Person	Contact Detail
1.	Independent Living Centre Kathmandu	Krishna Gautam	info@cil.org.np 5011087 9851004522
2.	Independent Living Centre Lalitpur	Tek Bahadur Gurung	9841451756
3.	Independent Living Centre Sindhupalchok	Bhoj Raj Shrestha	9851027067
4.	Samarthya Samaj Biratnagar, Morang	Bimal Basnet	bimal.basnet@yahoo.com 9842027672
5.	Independent Living Centre, Makwanpur	Dil Bahadur Sanbo	9845000622
6.	Independent Living Centre, Pokhara, Kaski	Sita KC	9856024940
7.	Handicap New Life Centre, Banke	Madanman Singh Rokaye	9848029199
8.	Independent Living Centre, Kailali	Rupak Singh	9848437211

Relation with Civil society

This organization always believes in the collaboration. So it has maintained its relationship and joined hands for achieving various common objectives with other organizations, alliances and forums working on various social issues. So far CIL-Kathmandu has;

·        Membership of Federation of Democratic NGOs

·        Membership  of Human Rights Joint Forum

·        Membership of Citizen Movement for Democracy and Peace Nepal

·        Associated with Constitution Assembly Election Monitoring Joint Forum

·        Associated with Kathmandu Coordination Committee of Disabled People Organizations.

·        Membership of Lalitpur Coordination Committee of Disabled People Organizations

·        Associated with HURON

Relation with Government

·        The Government has recognized CIL-Kathmandu as one of the key stakeholders to work jointly in disability rights

·        It has regular partnership with Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare

·        Social Welfare Council

·        It has been providing feed back and suggestions on disability issues to the pioneer government agencies such as National Planning Commission, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, Kathmandu Metropolitan City, District Development Committee Kathmandu, District Development Committee Lalipur

Relation with International Community

CIL-Kathmandu has;  

·        Membership of Asia Pacific Network of Independent Living (APNIL)

·        Membership of Asia KOKOROZASI Network of Independent Living

·        Associated with Human Right; Yes! America

·        Associated with Japanese Society for Rehabilitation for Persons with Disabilities, Japan (JSRPD)

·        Associated with DUSKIN Ainowa Foundation Japan

·        Associated with Mainstream Association, Japan

·        Associated with Partner Association, Japan

·        Associated with Mutyu IL Center Japan

·        Associated with CIL UBE, Japan

·        Associated with Japan Council on Independent Living (JIL)

·        Associated with Humancare Association Japan

Partnership

CIL-Kathmandu has long term Partnership with-

·        Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare Nepal

·        Mainstream Association Japan

·        Asia Pacific Network of Independent Living (APNIL)

·        Action Aid Nepal

CIL-Kathmandu has Short tem or event based partnership with-

·        Save the Children Norway

·        Save the Children USA

·        Blue Law, America

·        Office of Kathmandu Metropolitan City

·        Social Welfare Council

Vision, Mission, Goal and Objectives of the Organization

Vision: Empowered and productive persons with disabilities living with dignity and independently with the full realization of human rights in a barrier free environment and chosen community.

Mission: Promotion and Strengthening values, principles and practices of independent Living through out the Nation.

Goal: CIL-Kathmandu has set the following goals to reach its mission

·        Establish and strengthen IL centers as the key mediators of government to implement IL programs.

·        Get a positive and completely responsible state and society for the promotion and development of IL Programs.

·        Get adoption of anti discriminatory laws, policies regarding the rights of PWDs and its effective implementation.   

Objective:

CIL-Kathmandu has the following organizational objectives.

·        To make participation on social, political, economic, physical, cultural level of Persons with Disabilities to maintain their livelihood with their self-esteem, independency and dignity; and

·        To advocate for framing inclusive Act, law, regulation and activities as accordingly.

·        To perform or cause to perform activities to guarantee and protect human rights of Persons with Disabilities.

·        To advocate for implementing national, international treaty, agreement declaration etc. related to Persons with Disabilities.

·        To advocate for enabling environment through coordination with various governmental non governmental agencies, civil societies, political parties, national international agencies etc to access on education, health, communication, sports, employment, transportation, skill, training for Persons with Disabilities.

·        To make effort on activities related to Independent Living of Persons with Disabilities to make easy to live their life as independent, to create barrier free environment to enhance basil skill, knowledge and sensitization to Persons with Disabilities.

·        To prepare enabling environment to produce accessories that is use in daily life of Persons with Disabilities and make available of its.

·        To arrange peer counseling to empower Persons with Disabilities to eliminate their feeling of humiliation.

·        To perform or cause to perform various sensitizing activities in the area of disabilities through various agencies and concerned stakeholders, individual or agencies to access on right and interest of Persons with Disabilities.

·        To perform or cause to perform sensitization activities to eliminate all kind of discrimination related with disabilities, to build inclusive society and to make issue of disabilities as national issues.

 

Issues that CIL-Kathmandu has been raising up currently:

·        Inclusion of PWDs' rights in the new constitution of Nepal as the fundamental rights

·        Maximum resource allocation for promoting the independent living of PWDs

·        Ratification of UNCRPD as soon as possible

·        National disability survey

Current activity of CIL-Kathmandu:

1. Has been running "Monthly Independent Living Discussion Program" in the collaboration of Action Aid Nepal since 30^th March 2007.

Key Activities:

·        Sensitization on disability and Independent Living to various stakeholders such as professionals, civil society, DPOs, NGOs, INGOs, Government authorities, Media, Parents, Politicians, etc. One day in a month

2. Has been running program on "Promotion and Development of Independent Living Concept in Nepal" in the collaboration of Mainstream Association Japan since 2006 to 2009.

Key Activities

·        Network Expansion of CIL

·        Information Dissemination and Referral Activities

·        Personal Assistant Service

·        Administrative support

3.  Has been running "Promotion and Protection of rights of PWDs through Advocacy and Independent Living activities" in the collaboration of Ministry of Women, Children and social Welfare since 2007 to 2009

Key Activities

·        Advocacy and lobbying (meetings, delegation, interactions, group campaign etc.) with stakeholders in the current issues raised by CIL

·        Peer counseling to build self confident and minimize the inferiority complex

·        Practical knowledge to disabled people on daily living skill on the framework of Independent Living Program.

·        Accessibility program such as study and interventions

·        Implementation of Independent Living Experience Program in Kathmandu

·        Trainings to PWDs on Independent Living in regional level

Some Important outputs observed as the result of CIL's work:

There are some very good achievements which have really supported to promote the disability rights in Nepal. A regular, joint and hard effort of disabled people and their self help organizations are the key reasons behind this achievements and CIL-Kathmandu is always in decisive and important role to lead this joint movement since its establishment. In last three years we have observed some good achievements in policy and practices of government for promoting the rights of disabled people; are listed below;

·        The contribution of PWDs in the great Peoples' Movement of 2006 has been highly valued by political parties, civil society and the international communities as well. CIL-Kathmandu has played leading role to make visible PWDs in the peoples' movement from the side of civil society.  

·        Nepal government has signed on UNCRPD.

·        Because of the regular campaign carried out by CIL-Kathmandu and other organizations for barrier free environment some of the government buildings such as; Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Home, Ministry of Physical Planning and Construction, Ministry of Information and Communication, Ministry of Tourism, National Planning Commission, House of Representatives have been accommodated with wheelchair ramps. Similarly, some District Administration Offices, District Development Offices in some districts, Banks, some other public buildings, parks and other newly constructed building have also made wheel chair ramps in the main entrance of the building.  

·        Central Government of Nepal has allocated Disability Allowances Rs 1000 per month for Persons having Severe Disabilities and increased in the rate for other categories. The revised rate is Rs. 300 per month for other categories.

·        Government of Nepal has announced 100% tax free for those specially accommodated scooters which are used as need of disabled people for their private mobility.

·        Local Government of Nepal (district development committee) has brought the provision to be allocated 1 to 5% part of total district's budget for the development of disabled people, of Local Self Governance Act in practice in various districts.

·        There is 45% discount in the fare of public transport and 50% discount in air fare in domestic flight for PWDs.

·        Central Government of Nepal has allocated Rs 100, 00,000/- to work for the rights promotion and betterment of disabled people in the budget of fiscal year 2065/066. The amount is largest found ever allocated for disabled people in the history. National Budget of Nepal has addressed the activities of CIL- Kathamdnu and allocated some fund which would be used in following areas:

-  Advocacy

-  Peer counseling

-  Attendant services

-  Independent living programs and

-  Barrier free campaigning

·        The Interim Constitution of Nepal 2006 has addressed need of inclusion of PWDs in the state mechanisms and policy making level as well.

·        Because of the regular interventions of CIL-Kathmandu the Constitution Assembly Directories has ensured the provisions of sign language interpreter for deaf CA member and Personal Assistant for wheelchair user CA member representing to CA. It is also good to recall here that two persons from disabled community Mr. Raghabir Joshi (deaf person) and Ms. Indira Gurung (physically disabled) have been nominated as CA member. Similarly the directory has also ensured the provisions to participate two disabled people in the main committee to be formed for constitution drafting.

·        In organizational level CIL-Kathmandu has established 9 IL Centers in different parts of Nepal. They are launching the IL activities.

 

 Some important projects and activities that CIL-Kathmandu carried out in past

·        Organized "Independent Living Orientation Program for Persons with Disabilities" in the collaboration of Mainstream Association, Japan on 14th, 15th and 16th April, 2006 at Kathmandu.

·        Organized "International Independent Living Training/Seminar for Persons with Disabilities" in the collaboration of Mainstream association, Japan on 3rd, 4th and 5th June 2006 at Kathmandu.

·        Carried out Workshop “Issues of Persons with Disabilities in Interim Constitution" in the collaboration of Action Aid Nepal on 5th July, 2006 at Kathmandu.

·        Participated in leading role in the joint Movement of Disabled People leaded by National Federation of the Disabled and other Disabled Peoples' Organization from                                                                     18th July to 28th July 2006, Kathmandu.

·        Organized Workshop “Disability Yesterday, today and tomorrow" in the collaboration of MMSN on August, 29th 2006 at Kathmandu.

·        Leaded the "Campaigning  and Delegation Program" for incorporating disability issue in the interim constitution  on 24th August 2006 to 13th January 2007

·        Organized "Orientation to Attendants on Assisting PWDs for their daily living." in the collaboration of Mainstream Association Japan on 5th -6th November 2006 at Kathmandu.

·        Implemented Workshop on “ Inclusion  of PWDs in Interim Constitution Drafting Committee" on 21st November 2006, Kathmandu

·        Carried out several barrier frees advocacy campaign with state and non state stakeholders for making Public Places accessible from the perspective of disability. since Dec. 3rd 2006 to till now in the collaboration of Ministry of Women, Children and Social welfare, Action Aid Nepal and Mainstream Association Japan.                                                                           

·        Established "Disability Journalism Prize in Nepal" on 16th December 2006.

·        Carried out study on "Persons with Disabilities compelled to beg at Kathmandu Metropolitan city"   in the collaboration of Office of Kathmandu Metropolitan City and Social Welfare Council Nepal from 6th June 2007 to 6th Dec. 2007

·        Organized "Human Right Education Training and UNCRPD for PWDs" in the collaboration of Human Right; Yes! And Blue Law America on 2008

·        Participation of 3 representatives from CIL Kathmandu at the DPI World Summit held in South Korea, Seoul on 2008.

·        Participation of 1 representatives of CIL in the International Symposium of PWDs at Japan Tokyo on 2008.                                           

·        Organized "Independent Living Training to the Leaders of PWDs in Nepal" in the collaboration of Mainstream Association Japan on 2008.

·        Implemented regional orientation program on "IL and Human Right of PWDs" in the collaboration of Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare in different 5 development regions of Nepal.

·        Organized workshop for Women with Disabilities to orient them on "IL and rights of Women with Disabilities in Nepal" in the collaboration of Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare on 2008.