As the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) approaches its 20th year in 2026, we also mark eight years of our collective resistance and solidarity through #WhatWENeed. Our annual advocacy campaign reclaims World Mental Health Day as a space to challenge and correct the medical oppression faced by persons with psychosocial disabilities for decades.
For far too long, the medical model of disability has been used to justify coercion, institutionalization, and exclusion of our constituency. Through #WhatWENeed, we have been transforming this narrative, asserting that:
“We are persons with disabilities. We are holders of all human rights as guaranteed by the CRPD. Our struggle is not just for mental health reform, but for a transformation of worldviews, policies, laws, and programmes that shape our lives.”
Today, as we launch #WhatWENeed 2025: Resisting, Rising, Reimagining!
We invite our members and our global community to reflect on two decades of the CRPD, celebrating how far we have come and reimagining the road ahead. It is a call to action:
- To resist institutionalization and legal shackles.
- To rise for community inclusion and justice.
- To reimagine our futures of freedom and dignity.
Join us in sharing your submissions in the form of blogs, videos, artwork, creative expressions, advocacy, and reflections to make #WhatWENeed 2025 a resounding call for inclusion and solidarity!
Send your submissions to secretariat@tci-global.org or write to us if you have any questions at all!
