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Advocacy refers to the practice of influencing decisions in different spheres of life, including social, political or economic institutions. Further, advocacy is defined as the practice of speaking up either for oneself, others, or speaking through others who may be insiders, volunteers, or individuals paid or trained to serve as advocates. It is from the various definitions of advocacy that the different types of this practice emerge. Therefore, Murfitt, Noore, and Williams (2018) postulate, the different types of advocacy: peer advocacy, self-advocacy, carer advocacy, citizen advocacy, professional advocacy, and systematic advocacy. Peer advocacy is concerned with advocating by individuals who share experiences that are alike. Self-advocacy is practiced by an individual to address their own issues. Carer advocacy is seen as similar to peer advocacy, the only difference being a family of an individual undertaking the action. Regarding citizen advocacy, it is performed by a volunteer or a group of volunteers. Professional advocacy presupposes a trained or paid professional advocating on behalf of an individual. Finally, systematic advocacy means working with issues that are general in nature with the goal of bringing change to a system (Murfitt, Noore, & Williams, 2018).
Overall, advocacy plays an instrumental role in facilitating the attainment of human rights as it negotiates for these rights, as stated in Murfitt, Noore, and Williams (2018). This includes redressing all forms of discrimination against people which denies them a number of rights. In this case, advocacy is essential in defending and safeguarding the rights of people, in particular case, the disabled. Accordingly, the given essay explores the role of advocacy in safeguarding the rights of persons with disabilities and protecting them against the discrimination resulting from their condition. Particularly, the essay develops an advocacy campaign relating to an epileptic man who is denied employment following the disclosure of his condition, withdrawing the job offer
Advocacy Strategy
The following advocacy strategy has been developed to redress the discrimination highlighted in the above case. Through this strategy, this essay will demonstrate how employment discrimination for persons with disabilities can be handled and thus ensure the protection of their rights in the course of seeking employment. The advocacy strategy that is developed for this essay is based on the following key elements.
Firstly, redressing the discrimination of this individual can be achieved through getting people who share the same view of the problem together as this is an instrumental element of the advocacy strategy. According to the power point presentation (HDS310 Human rights and advocacy: Topic 8 advocacy), is the first steps to be taken comprise of activities such as campaign launch and use of advertising and promotion to advocate for change. This will serve to ensure that the situation is addressed at a large scale that will go beyond the case of an individual thus ensuring effective change in the employment of persons that are disabled. Effective networking will be crucial in carrying the campaign.
Secondly, this advocacy strategy is based on the use of the element of political action to redress the employment discrimination that the epileptic person has faced. This will be done by involving those within the political realm and possess the necessary power to bring about change. Therefore, consideration will be given to the state as a whole, politicians, and political parties. In relation to the state, departments such as the Australian Disability Services Commission may be contacted. Drafting letters and appeals to the politicians and political parties will help to raise fundamental questions in parliament on employment discrimination of the disabled (Shakespeare, 2015). Meeting with the political parties’ representatives will serve this purpose, as well.
Thirdly, the power point presentation (HDS310 Human rights and advocacy: Topic 8 advocacy) recommends community education to be used as a critical element of the advocacy strategy. In this case, community education encompasses reaching out to the community through a number of ways such as pamphlets, websites, community markers, and other means of information distribution that will spread awareness in the society. That is, these methods will result in the situation becoming common knowledge. The significance of this approach lays in demonstrating the reality of discrimination of persons that are disabled (Shakespeare, 2015). Therefore, it will serve to sway public opinion on the need to address the issues and make the organization involved correct their wrongful discriminating approach.
Further, the virtual activism can equally serve as an element of advocacy strategy that may be applied in the presented case of discrimination. Electronic means are an one of th most effective ways to reach out to the public. The reason for this lies in the rise of social media in the current age of technology. According to Shakespeare (2015), rising the Internet discussion on the issue will make it possible for the case to be spread to varying communities like the overall public, politicians, human rights organizations, and the government. At the same time, this approach will be essential in drawing the organization’s image forcing it avoid such incidents in the future.
The final element of the recommended advocacy strategy will be the use of the media to address the discrimination (HDS310 Human rights and advocacy: Topic 8 advocacy). This approach refers to the use of conventional media such as newspapers, radio, and television to raise public concern and address the issue. In this regard, the resulting media attention will be useful in advancing the strategy of addressing the discrimination by the organization. It can be used to complement other strategical elements such as community education or political action by inviting politicians to interviews whereby addressing the situation.
There are, however, other elements of the advocacy strategy that are useful but will not be included in the current recommended advocacy strategy. One of these approaches is the use of legal action to address discrimination. Although legal action may also be included in the advocacy strategy for addressing the issue of the discriminated individual suffering from epilepsy. It entails court appeals (HDS310 Human rights and advocacy: Topic 8 advocacy). Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 (DDA) serves as a basis for suing the organization. However, this element will not be used in this case of the advocacy strategy due to the following reasons. First of all, it will be a challenge to secure legal aid for the individual due to inadequate funding of such initiatives. The second reason is addressing the issue in the courts by suing the organization will be a costly process that the deceased individual may not be in a position to afford.
Direct action is the second element of the advocacy strategy that will not be included in this case. Direct action takes place when there is the need to get an immediate outcome of a situation (HDS310 Human rights and advocacy: Topic 8 advocacy). This approach will not be efficient due to the impossibility of immediate result. Such issues require time before they can be adequately addressed. Moreover, this element entails a direct confrontation with the opponent which, in this case, is the discriminating organization. The individual may fear to lose future employment opportunities due to confronting the organization.
Conclusion
This essay demonstrates the role of advocacy in fostering the protection of human rights and specifically the rights of disabled persons. A considerable number of disabled individuals as was evidenced in the case scenario face discrimination in the course of securing employment based on their status. In this case, they are denied the opportunity to prove themselves as contributing members of the society as organizations refuse to employ them. Thus, effective advocacy is useful in raising the issue and enabling change in how organizations treat disabled persons. Therefore, this paper offers an advocacy strategy that can be used to protect the rights of persons who are disabled and discriminated by organizations denying them employment opportunities. The advocacy strategy comprises of the following essential elements. The first step to be made is “getting together to address the issue”. The second element of the strategy is applying political action to secure assistance from the state and political level. The third element that is particularly important is using community education to allow public opinion and knowledge to foster change. Other essential elements that proved useful are virtual activism and media. The latter serve as complementary elements of the advocacy strategy given their ability in spreading the issue to a larger audience.
References
HDS310 Human rights and advocacy: Topic 8 advocacy. (n.d.). Power Point, Slide 1-36.
Murfitt, K., Noore, M., & Williams, G. (2018). Topic 8: Advocacy and human rights.
Shakespeare, T. (2015). Human rights and disability advocacy. Journal of Disability and Society, 30(2), 316-318.