September 1st -3rd:

A huge delegation (56 persons all together) from ULOBA, Norway was starting the journey from different parts of Norway, in different ways of transportations. Some went by car, some by plane, but most of us in three buses. Our delegation consisted of both disabled people who are co-owners of the cooperative with our assistants, and our colleagues in the administration. It is the policy of ULOBA to recruit disabled people for all kinds of positions in the cooperative. But we do have non-disabled colleagues that of course were included in the Freedom Drive.
 
We were a dedicated and well prepared group who left Norway to fight for independent living in the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and in the streets of Strasbourg. All of us had been introduced to the Freedom Drive-history, from colleagues that had participated before, and all of us had certain tasks to do during the Freedom Drive 2007; for instance interviewing representatives from other countries delegations about personal assistance in their country.
 
It took us three days of travelling to reach Strasbourg late in the evening September 3rd. We stayed in five different hotels because most hotels have only few accessible rooms. 
 

September 4th:

September 4th was the first day ENILs (European Network on Independent Living) Freedom Drive 2007. ULOBAs delegation was split in two because we were invited to the Norwegian Embassy that is secretariat for the Norwegian work in the Council of Europe. Ambassador Torbjørn Frøysnes and his colleagues gave us important information about how they work towards Council of Europe with special focus on disability and the Councils action plan 2004 -2010.

ULOBA´s president Jan Kaare Stura as the head of the ULOBA-delegation invited the ambassador to a closer cooperation in the future.

The other part of our delegation attended the official opening of Freedom Drive 2007 at headquarters during the Freedom Drive, at the European Youth Centre that is situated very close to the European institutions. The Youth Centre was packed with disabled people and good colleagues from ten European countries. This year we could welcome a considerable delegation from Bulgaria and Sweden.  

ENIL.
At the Youth Centre the political mission of Freedom Drive 2007 was stated by ENIL- European Network on Independent Living - board members from different countries. The spirit was high – everybody was ready to be visible in the European institutions and all over the city of Strasbourg.
 
Meetings with Portugese delegation.
After lunch Bente Skansgaard, chair of ENIL, and board member Vibeke Maroy
Melstrom had together with other people from the ENIL-board, a meeting with the representatives from the Portuguese delegation of the European Parliament. The reason for this meeting was that Portugal at that time had the Presidency of the European Union.

Portugese situation.
There were no disabled people from Portugal at the Freedom Drive this year or ever before. The situation for disabled people in Portugal is generally not good, personal assistance is still not known in Portugal. We made these points clear for the representatives we met, but they did not seem to take the message to hard. 

Meeting with 5 Irish MEPs:
Immediately after this meeting the Irish delegation had invited people from ULOBA to participate in their meeting with Irish MEP (Members of the European Parliament) at the Parliament. Five Irish MEPs came to the meeting. An Irish independent living-activist was chairing the meeting. He refereed to the Freedom Drive 2005, and expressed dissatisfaction with the discrimination that disabled people still face every day in Ireland as well as in the rest of Europe. He demanded an anti-discrimination directive to stop discrimination and abuse of disabled people Europe-wide.

UN-Convention.
He also complained that so few European countries so far have ratified the UN-convention on disabled people. He pointed out that the new UN-convention on disabled people were very clear about mainstreaming of disabled people in society. The Irish MEPs were positive and promised to improve their work on anti-discriminations. 

The Norwegian group was impressed about the knowledge and involvement in independent living issues among the Irish MEPs. Our colleague Maria Holm, was brave enough to raise her hand and state: I love my freedom – which was quite moving. We are proud of her.

September 5th:

The Freedom Drive rally!
September 5th was the day of the Freedom Drive-rally! Delegations from France, Belgium, Ireland, Bulgaria, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Spain, England and Norway were gathering in a park. All together approximately 200 persons! It was a really colourful and diverse group of people gathering!

ULOBA sponsored as usual t-shirts to everybody! This year they were black with orange and pink print: Freedom-Drive 2007. ULOBA brought a megaphone so we could start training on slogans we should shout during the rally and outside the Parliament.

ENIL had applied for the permit to do the rally. The Strasbourg police was guiding us. All the actionists were very disciplined and kept staying in a narrow and very long procession on the pavement! Some of the Norwegian actionists wanted to occupy the streets to get more attention, but were advised not to do so.

Because the procession was so spread out it was difficult to shout our slogans loud enough for all of us hear all the time, but we did our best communicate: What do we want? – PERSONAL ASSISTANCE! -  When do we want it? – NOW! Where do we want it? – EVERYWHERE!

President of the EU-Parliament.
Outside the Parliament we waited quite a while to get into the hall. Inside the Parliament hall ENILs board surrounded of all the ralliers, had an informal meeting with the President of the EU-Parliament and Richard Howitt – chair of the Intergroup that deals with disability quotations in the Parliament. He has supported ENIL for many years. Representatives from the different countries were addressing the European Parliament for instance Kirsti Dahle, councillor from ULOBA, Norway.

After Bente had addressed the MEPs a quick colleague rushed up with Freedom Drive t-shirts to the celebrities.

After ending the rally we went to the Youth centre for quick lunch before the meeting with the Intergroup. John Evans (former president of ENIL), Inec Bulic (secretary general of ECC) and Bente Skansgaard (present chair of ENIL) spoke to MEPs from many countries to inform them about what we want to see happening in the European Union. Some questions were asked by MEPs and Freedom drivers and we got some support for our independent living approach. 

Meetings with MEPs.
Every group of disabled people from different countries had meetings with their national MEPs to give information, develop their knowledge on independent living and them inspiration to work with de-institutionalisation and an independent living-directive to include independent living-services.

Independent Living is much more known in many other European countries than in Norway – so we do have a challenge!

In the evening ULOBA was hosting a grand barbeque evening for all the delegations from all countries at the Youth Centre. Martin Noughton from Ireland was celebrated as the main independent living-brain behind the Freedom Drive-idea. And John Evans from United Kingdom was celebrated for chairing many years, and promising to be sincerely involved also without being the president. All seemed to have a very nice time, and were happy to celebrate the successes of Freedom Drive 2007! 

September 6th:

September 6th we had a meeting with the head of Secretariat of the division in the Council of Europe that handles disability issues, mr. Thorsten Affelbach and his colleague, Angela Garabagiu.

From ULOBA and Norway Bente Skansaard, Vibeke Marøy Melstrøm and Sidsel Maxwell Grasli participating in this meeting. This was an important meeting where ENIL expressed our concern about discrimination and lack of human rights for disabled people to representatives from the Council of Europe. Thorsten Affelbach explained how the Council work on disability topics, and especially with the Councils Action Plan 2004 -2010.  He advised ENIL to work strategic through our national members and delegations to implement elements from the Action Plan into national plans for disabled people.

September 7th:

The ULOBA-delegation left Strasbourg and Freedom-drive in cars, by plane and busses; we left with lots of new ideas, inspiration and new friends plus useful relations to colleagues throughout Europe.

We are looking forward to the next Freedom Drive in 2009….