1. Bringing About Change In The National Level
Bringing About Change In The National Level By Aria Indrawati President Of Pertuni (Indonesian Blind Union)

2. How To Make A change? Advocacy is a strategy to bring a change
It should address particular issue;
Systematic plan;
It should be done in cooperation with related parties, included mass media to blow up the issue;
Use assertive communication;
Recognize every result that we could achieve – every single step;
Doccument the process to enable us to use it as reference and model.

3. 2 Models As examples
First: advocacy to develop inclusive higher education, with the goal was having government policy as umbrella to mandate universities to develop themselves as inclusive universities;
Second: advocacy to have new disability act, as domestication of UN CRPD which had been ratified by Indonesian government.

4. First Model
Advocacy to make higher education inclusive, accessible for every body, included students with disability;
In Indonesia, advocacy in this area was initiated by Pertuni, supported by ICEVI and The Nippon Foundation through “Higher Education project”;
Planning was made systematically, step by step;
Started with one year initial project;

5. Initiating model of solution how to cope with challenge faced by blind students who pursue higher education in Indonesia;
Starting with two cities with different situation, and use this two situation as models;
Success of this one year initial project then was expanded to other cities in Indonesia, and expand to other related isue areas.

6. For 6 years, advocacy was done in grass root level, reached selected state universities, resource centers that serve blind students, as well as highschool blind students;
The next stage was encourage the government, aspecially Ministry of Education to develop policy which mandate universities to develop themselves as inclusive universities, and also mandate the government to provide fund for those process;
The result was Minister of Education of The Republic of Indonesia issued decree on “inclusive higher education”.

7. Although the one who did advocacy was Pertuni – Indonesian Blind Union, the policy cover all varied of disability;
When it came to policy, this policy was for all.
It does mean that advocacy which is done by a DPO who work for one disability group, the impact is for all people with disabilities.

8. Second Model
Advocacy to push Indonesian government and parliament to issue new disability act, as the domestication of UN CRPD which had been ratified by Indonesian Government. Advocacy was done, both toward legislative side as well as executive side.

9. Steps which had been done were as follows:
Formed a National Coalition, consisted of:
* National level of disabled people organizations, covering blind, deaf, psycho social, women with disabilities, parrent association, etc;
* Public Legal Aid Institution;
* Center Study of Law & Policy

10. The National Coalition drafted the disability act and submit the draft to the parliament;
The national coalition conduct series of meetings with the fractions in the parliament who represent political parties to get political support for the act draft;
The parliament put the legislation process on their priority agenda within the year, and formed a special comeettee to process the act;
The parliament special comeettee submit the draft to The President, included invitation to discuss the act draft;

11. In parralel with the process in the parliament, The National Coalition also conducted series of meeting with ministries to promote the idea of new disability act which had been writen in the act draft;
The President formed special team consisted of selected ministries who represented government to discuss the act draft with the parliament;
Parliament special comeettee discuss the draft with the President team;

12. Pressure also were done through mass media as well as on line petition, to make the parliament and government put better attantion, and listen to the voice of people with disability.
After pursuing a long journey – almost three year process, on March 17th, the parliament and the president agreed to issue the new disability act.
Although the spirit and the content of the new disability act was not really satisfied PWD which were represented by the national coalition, at least, currently, Indonesia has had a new disability act after this country ratifying UN CRPD in 2011 – five years before the act was issued.