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From Charity to Disability Rights
From Charity to Disability Rights traces Rehabilitation International (RI) from its inception as a small grassroots organization in the mid-west, that was created to serve the needs of children with disabilities locally, through its growth under a series of visionary leaders to become a major force in international disability advocacy work.
RI is the only global disability non-governmental organization that is both cross-disciplinary and cross-disability, and as such it has been among the first to champion every major idea in the field of rehabilitation. In 1922, long before the idea gained currency, RI championed the idea of community-based services. Additionally, in 1929, RI petitioned the League of Nations to establish an office to oversee the collection of disability-related statistics and, more recently, it has been in the forefront of the effort for a UN Convention on Human Rights for People with Disabilities.
RI has been the parent organization for dozens of other major disability-related groups including Easter Seals, World Rehabilitation Fund and Disabled People's International. The history of RI and the disability rights movement presented in the book provides valuable insight into the global impact of NGOs.
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