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LIFE HAVEN CENTRE FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING – LAPDI / SANTA CRUZ FEDERATION OF PERSONS
WITH DISABILITIES (SCFPD) AS IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATION
Title of Project: Empowering PWDs Through Independent Living Peer Counselling
The Labuin Association of Persons with Disabilities (LAPD), an organization composed of and for Persons with Disabilities, was launched in January 2013. The group helps other villages to organize their own associations, which is the project by Life Haven Centre for Independent Living, Inc. The Life Haven Center for Independent Living is composed or people living with disabilities. They are guided by the Independent Living Philosophy and leading the charge to promote, teach, and share their active participation in the Independent Living Movement. Their mission is to lead the establishment of Independent Living Centers in the Philippines as its vehicle towards full empowerment, integration, and participation in the community. The Empowering People with Disabilities Through Independent Living Peer Counselling project provides people living with disabilities with knowledge, skills, and abilities, and teaching them how to avail various resources to become physically, emotionally, and economically empowered. Peer counselling provides a wide range of activities such as sharing of experiences and information that can be understood as a person with disability because the counselor himself/herself is a person with disability. Peer counselling is an effective tool to recharge one’s spirit and vigor especially for people with debilitating conditions. The project also lessens the dependence of People with Disabilities by empowering them to think and decide for themselves. This opens doors to a lot of opportunities and possibilities for them. They start seeking for themselves the answers on how they can achieve their dreams and how they can convince their family to support their living independently in the sense that they are the ones to decide for themselves.
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