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Robert Martin is a person with an intellectual disability who is also a self-advocate. He just had a book published about his life.When he was a child, Robert Martin lived in an institution. He suffered a lot there. When he grew up, he decided to fight for the rights of people with disabilities. He spoke in front of the United Nations as well. The United Nations is a very important organisation. |
Robert Martin, a committed self-advocate from New Zeeland and former member of the Council of Inclusion International, has recently had his biography published. Becoming a Person is the uplifting and sometimes emotional story of how Martin, a person with an intellectual disability, helped change the world.
Locked up in a residential institution from when he was a child, Martin suffered neglect, abuse and violence. While he felt “worthless and valueless, without opinions or rights,” Martin decided to educate himself, and began a civil rights campaign in a small town in New Zealand, which later grew into an international movement.
Martin has since then travelled the world to advocate for people with disabilities and, in 2003, also addressed the United Nations.
Robert Martin has currently been nominated by New Zealand to stand for the United Nations Committee on the Right of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) elections in 2016.
