As a Peace Corps volunteer stationed in San Estanislao, Paraguay, I have been working with the local PLAN International office and have written English and Spanish versions of an article about a Children's Day celebration at a local center for disabled people, the National Secretariat on the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities (SENADIS), that PLAN assisted in giving. The goal of the event was promotion of new services offered by a government agency to disabled people in order to educate and bring to light options to the public, who often times hide and neglect disabled people due to social stigma.

1. COMMUNITY GROUPS BRING RIGHTS
INTO THE LIGHT
San Estanislao, San Pedro, Paraguay
By Brienne Thomson
Peace Corps Paraguay
Three community groups came together to promote the
rights, services and new measures being implemented
for persons living with disabilities through a vibrant
Children’s Day celebration.
Earlier this year, Juan Esteban Aguirre, the Ambassador
of Paraguay to the United Nations (UN), expressed that
the growing democracy in Paraguay has also given a
voice to those with disabilities through a 2012 law
augmenting the 32-year-old National Institute for the
Protection of Special People (INPRO) to (SENADIS), the
National Secretariat on the Human Rights of Persons
with Disabilities, as an organization with the ability to
form and implement public policy. But more importantly,
SENADIS has been allotted an independent expense
budget, something that INPRO never had.
However, public awareness still needs to be raised about the rights of persons with disabilities,
including the health and rehabilitation services offered through SENADIS. Civic recognition can also
help implement measures being taken toward a more inclusive and accessible education system for
disabled children who, according to the UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
continue to be marginalized and excluded from public services and from society as a whole, especially
in the more rural regions of the country.
“Paraguay’s general census found that people
aren’t treating the disabled as another member
of the family. They’re being excluded, not
getting the attention they need or their
treatments,” said Deicy Aldama Gonzalez, a
Field Technician for Plan International. “We’re
trying to raise the public consciousness of this.”
Recent efforts to promote a more equal and
inclusive perspective about persons living with
disabilities in San Estanislao, the largest city in
the district of San Pedro, came through a
collaboration between three community service
groups.
The trio of Plan International, an NGO working
to support the rights of children in San Pedro
for 18-years, the Parent Patient Friend
Rotaract clowns and kids whirl around for Musical Chairs

2. Association, started by a local community activist and patient of SENADIS, Juana Gimenez, and
Rotaract, a Rotary International youth group, worked together to make Children’s Day a success.
The result was a vibrant celebration that left a mix of 350-
kids, both from the neighborhood and patients of SENADIS,
laughing, smiling and feeling positive community recognition.
According to Plan’s Gonzalez, the idea of working with
SENADIS was instigated by a study done by Plan’s
headquarters, which concluded that people living with
disabilities in Paraguay were being left by the wayside.
“We want to make this visible to the public because disabled
people have rights that need to be recognized,” she added.
But it was through the connection between Gimenez and
Plan’s Program Unit Manager, Marcelino Prieto, also a San
Estanislao Rotary Club member, that the idea to start the
Plan/SENADIS alliance should be launched through the
national Children’s Day holiday.
Prieto reached out to Rotary’s youth group, Rotaract, to take
part in the event.
"We tried to provide our support,” said Rotaract’s President
Oscar Sachelaridi. “We promoted the event on the radio and
in the streets, and collaborated with the Parent Patient Friend
Association of SENADIS and Plan. Plan financed the event
and we were able to lend a hand by entertaining the kids by
dressing up as clowns for the day.”
According to the Coordinator of SENADIS in San
Estanislao, Amado Vera, “Since the original INPRO center
was established in 2004, there has never been a party quite
as like this.”
Fortunately, Vera added, after the passage of the 2012 law
forming SENADIS for the over one-million Paraguayans
living with disabilities, “The perspective and support for
disabled people is improving, but we need more promotion
like the Children's Day celebration."
And fortunately with this newly formed alliance between
San Estanislao’s community service groups and SENADIS,
ideas are in the works to augment the modest budget with
community activities and charity events to help the center
better provide for its more than 2,000 patients.
"We are short on professional staff; more physical
therapists, more teachers, doctors,” said Vera. “We only
have four physical therapists and we need at least ten.”
Juana Gimenez, founder of the Parent Patient
Friend Association continuing to serve

3. “We don’t have a dental clinic or specialty doctors,” said
Gimenez. “With the Parent Patient Friend Association, we’re
trying to get donations to fund these necessities that
SENADIS can’t provide.”
Plan and Rotaract are also onboard to lend a hand in any way
they can.
“Yes, we want to continue this connection,” confirmed Plan’s
Gonzalez. “But also through bringing in other people, not just
Plan; the government, the municipality, youth groups and
other people who want to support the endeavor.”
Rotaract’s President Sachelaridi added that on top of the
trainings and school lectures that they participate in,
promoting the rights and opportunities to advance persons
living with disabilities to the public, “Is more urgent now, and
that’s the part we want to attack.”
*Author’s Note: Before the rapid increase in motorcycles, starting
in the mid-2000s, most of Paraguay’s disabled were caused by birth
defects or acquired diseases. However, according to Luz Bella
González, the Director of SENADIS, in 2012 alone, out of 80,000
patients 26% were due to traffic accidents, mostly on motorcycles.
Dayni Silva and Oscar Sachelaridi, leaders in
Rotaract's youth group