“Empowered Women of Noa” is the name of an organization that aims to generate tools for women with disabilities who have difficulties accessing a job and are doubly discriminatd by society. They seek to empower them to demand that their rights be respected.
The central objective of this institution is to strengthen, promote and concretize the actions of women through social, political, economic, educational, cultural and family participation. In addition, to vindicate and promote gender equality, empowering them to conduct any activity or situation of daily life, strengthening their self-esteem, autonomy and independence.
Through virtual conferences, which are every Saturday afternoon, they carry out debates between professionals linked to disability and women’s topics. “We are evaluating actions so that girls with disabilities have more tools and can be better because they are not having a good time, we suffer for the simple fact of being a woman and increased by our disability. We want them to know about politics and their rights for making good decisions when facing a difficult situation in their life, “said Alicia Riviere, pioneer of this space, in dialogue with El Tribuno de Jujuy.
“Women with disabilities are totally invisible to society and to public policies, unfortunately we do not participate in anything. The issue of gender is another of our struggles because we already know that there is no equality, much less to those that have a disability, they are in a situation of poverty and they even have dependent children. The State does not provide a comprehensive sexuality education either because women with disabilities are seen as sexless and they are not, there is a very bad culture with respect to disability, “added Riviere.
In this sense, he commented that “we need to have more participation in issues where there are only men, men are always employed more than women and the same thing happens in terms of disability, that’s why we ask for a job because we have to work, be heard and seen as a person who can get ahead, not limit it. There are many themes to work with. ”
“We are going through a difficult context due to the pandemic, and that added to what was already happening, puts us in a place where we must be strong and empowered. For many years, we have not been called or participated in public policy issues that’s another reasons why we create this space,” she said.
She stressed that their needs are not heard, that is why they called together people from different areas such as the Women’s Council and non-governmental organizations at the national level to debate these problems and generate concrete actions that help this sector that is affected. She also noted that they expect more people to join.
She stressed the importance of having accessible public transport because the lack of units “makes it impossible for many people with disabilities to move and it is unfortunate because they cannot leave their home. A pension is not enough to take a cab every day, that has to be urgently solved and it is something that we have been asking for for 12 years. We all have the right to move on the street and do activities because a disabled woman who does not have public transportation cannot take care of her health, work or study. Nor do they properly care for their children if they have them.”
Se ended by saying that “we must not lower our arms and continue the fight firmly so that all this is solved. I want to thank the women with or without disabilities who join us, these talks are intended to give them another perspective. We also talk about self-esteem because women with disabilities have it low since society takes care of it, there is a lot of discrimination, we have to work on it and that our legislators give us more participation.”
