Click on a word which is in bold to read what it means.
Our Voting Champions in March are Lucette and Dani Blanquart
of “Nous aussi” Dunkerque.
Nous aussi Dunkerque is a French local group
fighting for the rights
of people with intellectual disabilities.
They do a lot of things
to help people with intellectual disabilities
to understand how voting works.
Nous Aussi have created some posters
to show to people with intellectual disabilities
how to vote.
You worked on posters
that show how to vote.
Who had the idea
to make these posters?
Christine Heusele was
our support person.
Christine had the idea to make the posters.
She had seen a Tunisian election poster
that had drawings on it.
She thought it was a good idea.
She said we could make a poster like that
for the French elections.
How did you make the posters?
We had been invited to a meeting
of people working for their cities and towns.
We said that voting can be hard
for people with intellectual disabilities.
We told them about the poster idea.
They offered to give us some money
to make the posters.
They also supported us
in telling many people about the posters.
Lucette, you went to a meeting in Paris.
At the meeting, you talked about
how we can let more people know
that they should be voting in elections.
At this meeting there were
2 other self-advocates.
How was it like for you
to work with this group?
People listened to us self-advocates
and they were very interested
in our “I vote” posters.
You also needed to defend the posters.
Why?
During the meeting some people
wanted to add some information to the posters.
But that would have made everything more complicated.
I said that we had worked a lot on the posters
and that we don’t want to change them.
Now people under guardianship in France
will be able to vote.
This is because the law has been changed.
What do you think about that?
This is a good change.
But we need to make sure
that people know
that they can go to vote now.
Many people still don’t know
about that.
Members of “Nous aussi” have made a research
to find out how many people
are registered to vote.
What will you do
with the result of this research?
Many people are surprised
when they find out
that they can vote.
They don’t know
if they are registered
on the elections list or not.
When we asked them
if they would like some support
in registering for the elections,
most of them say yes.
We are planning on training people
to show them how to vote.
You participated in the meeting of Nous Aussi
on the right to vote.
What did you learn there?
When I was there I voted with a machine,
and that was very interesting.
I also liked the videos on the European elections.
Why is it important to you
to vote in the European elections?
Voting is part of being a citizen.
It is also a way to express ourselves.
We are citizens like everybody else.
Voting can help
make our dreams come true.
Our Voting Champion in January was László Bercse. Read more
Our Voting Champion in February was Andreas Zehetner.
Read more