Senada Halilčević Biography

My name is Senada Halilčević and I was born in Tuzla on December 26, 1976.

I finished elementary school at the Miroslav Zotović Institue in Banja Luka. After that, I enrolled in high school for knitters at the Center for Education in Dubrava, Zagreb.

I have been working for Self-advocacy Association since 2008. Self-advocacy Association is an organization focused on empowering and informing people with intellectual disabilities about their human rights.

My life motto is that even though I am a person with a disability, I have the right to live my life how I want. That’s why I dedicated my life to activism and advocating rights for people with disabilities.

As a self-advocate, I participate in various projects because I have life experience that can help in advocating for the rights of other people with disabilities. Through our group meetings, we discuss the daily obstacles we face and how we can overcome and change them.

Before we start advocating for our rights, it is important to be informed. We self-representatives need easy- to understand information. That’s why I participated in important international projects such as Pathways and Pathways 2 which had developed European standards for creating easy-to-understand information.

For the last few years, I have been actively involved in projects implemented by the organization Inclusion Europe. First, I participated as a member of the project council for the Life After Violence project, which deals with researching the experiences of women and girls with violence in institutions. And in the second part of the Life After Violence project, I participated as a researcher. Working on these projects made me more aware of how much violence happens around us.

That is why my next challenge is to speak clearly and loudly about this problem that people with disabilities struggle with.

With the great support of the Self-Advocacy Association, I participated in the work of the European Platform of Self-Advocates, first as a member of the management group, and later as president for 3 terms. The presidential mandate in EPSA also meant the vice – presidential mandate in Inclusion Europe. As a representative of EPSA and vice president of Inclusion Europe, I participated in many conferences. That gave me an even greater opportunity and motivation to stand up for the rights of people with intellectual disabilities not only in Croatia but also in Europe.

I was proud when I had the opportunity to participate in the discussion on the general comment on article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was held at the UN in Geneva, in 2016, and the 5th session of the signatory members of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities held at the UN in New York in 2009. It is very important that disabled people themselves are involved in such events so that our voices and the obstacles we face can be heard.

I also joined the Čigra taekwondo club, which implements the „ Na krilima Čigre“ project which provides training for adults with intellectual and physical disabilities. I have been training since 2017 and have already achieved great sports successes. After 8 months of training as a member of the Croatian national team and a representative of the „ Na krilima Čigre“ project, I participated in the 7th European Para-Taekwondo Championship, which took place in Bulgaria in 2018 in the city of Plovdiv. At that event, I became the first female in the history of Croatia to become the European champion in parapooms in the P31 category.

At the 8th World Para-Taekwondo Championship, which took place in Turkey in the city of Antalya in 2019, I won a gold medal and second place as a team in the physically disabled category. At the end of 2019, I defended the title of European Champion in Italy, and at the 3rd Para Championship in Croatia, I defended the title of Croatian Champion in parapooms. In addition to the above, in 2021 I completed the course for an administrator at the Public Open University Zagreb.