DPA Strategic Plan

Disabled Persons Assembly (DPA) NZ Strategic Plan 2018-22

Vision: 
DPA works to improve society for all disabled people in New Zealand and around the world.

DPA is a pan-disability disabled people’s organisation with a vision of an equitable society, where, as disabled people of all impairment types and groups in society, we are able to direct our own lives, and where:
Disability rights are an everyday reality
Disabled people have equal political, educational, economic, social and cultural outcomes
Attitudinal and environmental barriers that prevent disabled people’s full and equal participation in society are removed

Values: 
Equity – Integrity – Creativity – Independence – Inclusivity – Diversity – Transparency

DPA’s Commitments:
We recognise Māori as Tangata Whenua and Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand.
We recognise the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities as the basis for disabled people’s relationship with the State.
We recognise the Social Model of Disability as the guiding principle for analysis of disability and impairment.
We recognise disabled people as experts on their own lives.
Strategic Goals:
1. DPA will be the foremost pan disability organisation in New Zealand by demonstrating leadership in building connection and communication between disabled people, current and potential members of DPA, impairment specific organisations, the broader disability community and wider society – to develop a strong effective united voice on disability issues.
2. DPA will support disabled people to be valued by supporting disabled person-led research, data and evidence gathering, to demonstrate inclusion and exclusion and how disabled people are valued as a result.
3. DPA will demonstrate disability advocacy by promoting and monitoring disabled people’s rights at international, national and regional levels.
4. DPA will create organisational sustainability and growth by continuing to strengthen and streamline internal organisational and 
5. financial processes, and by developing new income streams.
 

We also work to help monitor the implementation of the UN Convention

Our rights as full citizens of New Zealand are outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the Disability Convention). It is important that the voice of disabled people is to the fore as the Convention is implemented.

DPA is part of a group of organisations that represent the views of disabled people called the NZ Convention Coalition Monitoring group. This group periodically interviews disabled people in New Zealand to hear their experiences as the Disability Convention is implemented.

The NZ Convention Coalition Monitoring group is part of a wider group that monitors how the government is implementing the Disability Convention, called the International Monitoring Mechanism.

This wider group includes the Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Ombudsman as well as the NZ Convention Coalition Monitoring group.