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The members of the association are handicapped people who believe in and act by the principles of the independent living. We are united in our diversity, in order to achieve our goals easier. We do not fall for the “healthy life” rhetoric and custody and care logic. We avoid patronizing practices of charity and pity, and most of all, we don’t allow for somebody to assume the right or feel entitled to speak on our behalf, instead of us and in our name. We understand handicap as a social status, assigned to anyone, who in a certain moment or in a certain society falls out of existing definitions and accepted norms. A handicapped person can find him or herself in social relations, which push him or her into and keep him or her in a deprivileged position. Therefore, one must surpass such relations. Purpose of YHD:
a) Promotion of independent living and development and expansion of our network on the national and international level;
b) Education of personal assistants, society members, experts, parents and other interested parties on the subject of independent living;
c) Consultation, information on the options of independent living;
d) Collecting and forwarding of the literature, audio and video production on the subject of handicap, publishing activities;
e) Organization of acts of support or protest;
f) Execution of programmes in the area of social care and all other activities, which contribute to equality of rights;
g) Striving for equal rights of the handicapped persons, struggle against discrimination, prejudices and stereotypes in all spheres of social life;
h) Information and raising public awareness, participation in the designing of measures at the local, national and international leve
Centre for Educational Policy Studies – CEPS is a unit of the Faculty of Education of the University of Ljubljana. The Centre is active in the field of educational policy studies. It participates in national and international activities in this field, particularly in research, development and consultancy projects. The Centre's activities support study programmes and are aligned with other research at the Faculty of Education. Its members are professors and researchers of the Faculty of Education and some other faculties of the University of Ljubljana and from other institutions.
The Institute for Economic Research (IER) is an autonomous non-governmental research organisation with a long tradition in the field of macroeconomic and microeconomic analysis. In the beginning of the 1990s, the European integration process and the growing awareness of the importance of entrepreneurship gave rise to research and consulting activities in the fields of international competitiveness, strategic planning, organizational and financial restructuring of enterprises, feasibility studies etc. The Institute has developed a wide range of international research and consulting activities as well as contacts. Since 1994 the Institute has been an institutional member of EADI (European Association of Development and Training Institutes) with headquarters in Bonn.
IFIMES – International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan studies, based in Ljubljana - Slovenia, gathers and selects various information and sources on key conflict areas in the world. Based on the selected information, the Institute analyses mutual relations among parties with an aim to promote the importance of global conflict resolution of the existing conflicts and the role of preventive actions against new global disputes.
Idea to establish IFIMES Institute is a reflection of our common reality and the needs of the world to reach for common solutions – now more than ever in the past. Common interests and bonds among different policies, nations, religions, world regions and diverse interest parties in the unipolar world are essential. Constant search for differences and rejections is like searching for a needle in a pack of hay, while insisting on cooperation and respect for diversity provides a chance to create a better world.
The area of research and work of IFIMES Institute is the Middle East (Gulf states) and the Balkans (South-Eastern Europe), where relations among different entities are based on religious, ethnic, national and racial grounds. Associates of the Institute are respected experts, scientists, managers, journalists and researchers, who are introducing younger colleagues from all over the world to work, with a purpose of additional education, promotion of knowledge and scientific achievements with an emphasis on the political and economic connections within the region, among the regions and on the global level.
The Peace Institute was founded in 1991 and focused initially on peace studies and the issues of violence, war and security. In 1994 and 1995 our field of interest was extended to embrace a wider range of contemporary social and political studies. Among the topics that were added to our agenda were racism and political conflicts, gender studies, cultural studies, and political and social practice. Our endeavours to integrate academic work with concrete social and political engagement led to a number of action research studies and projects. In addition to the topics mentioned above, we also began to concentrate on political extremism, democratisation and equal opportunity politics in Central and Eastern Europe, independent women's and feminist movements in Slovenia, as well as issues of sexual abuse, refugees, civil service in place of military service, cultural industry and the like. Towards the end of 2000 three additional programs formerly conducted by the Open Society Institute - Slovenia were transferred to the Peace Institute: Media, Civil Society and East East Cooperation programs. With the inclusion of these programs our area of work was further extended to the fields of human rights, media studies and topics related to the EU and Stability Pact. We continue to devote close attention to marginalized social and political issues that are usually ignored by mainstream institutions.
