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Independent Living News & Policy from the National Council on Independent Living

Today Is the Day! Act Now to Help Lead the Campaign to Ratify the CRPD

CRPD LogoNCIL members, your advocacy on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has been very effective. Your outreach through calls, emails, and social media prompted the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote the CRPD out of committee on the 22nd Anniversary of the ADA! When NCIL members gathered in Washington, DC for the 2012 Annual Conference, talking with your Senators during Hill Visits provided important advocacy by educating lawmakers on the importance of the CRPD to the disability community.

Congress has returned from recess, the “Lame Duck” session has begun, and we need you to call your Senators today! We are close to achieving our goal of Ratification of the CRPD. The disability advocacy community is coming together to be a part of a Three Phase Campaign that started Monday, October 22 and runs through the end of the year! 

NCIL joins over 100 other disability organizations in this campaign to get the CRPD Ratified in the 112th Congress. We have been told that Senators need to hear that the disability community supports CRPD and wants to see ratification.

NCIL has been asked to lead today, Tuesday, November 14th! Through a concentrated effort, we hope to achieve the goal of contacting all 100 Senators today. Advocates from each state are asked to do the following for both of your Senators’ offices:

  • Call
  • Email
  • Tweet (using the hashtag #CRPD) or Facebook. *Please send pictures of you and other members of your community with signs supporting the CRPD.

The message: I am a person with a disability [or an advocate] and I support the CRPD. I want you to ratify the CRPD in the lame duck session of Congress.

We need you to activate your networks. Contact your Senators and then get your family, friends, and community allies to reach out to their contacts as well. With your help, we can do this!

Stay tuned for more information in the next few weeks. We will send a reminder prior to the next date that NCIL will lead the Campaign, Wednesday, December 5th.

For more information, follow Twitter hashtag #CRPD, or visit www.usicd.org. Contact Dara Baldwin, Policy Analyst, at [email protected] with any questions, or follow @DaraBaldwin1 on Twitter.