Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) is a cross disability, consumer controlled[1] international non-governmental organization (INGO) headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and with regional offices in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and North America and the Caribbean.
It was COPOH's policy that any post-trauma rehabilitation of disabled people should be for a limited period only, followed by independent living.
A vote for Rehabilitation International to require a minimum level of membership and control by disabled people, rather than by non-disabled professionals alone, was again defeated.
[2] Henry Enns managed to obtain a place at the UN Advisory Committee meeting in Vienna, Austria, on 20–29 August 1980 for the UN International Year of Disabled Persons, and through these connections stated to gain United Nations (UN) recognition of DPI and some initial funding.
The upstairs gallery for observers was inaccessible, so the DPI members were in the main room and used it to lobby the various governments' delegations directly.
The following key Executive posts were elected: In her book of the history of DPI in the 1980s by one of the participants throughout, Diane Driedger, reports that the early years between 1981 and 1985 included quite a few conflicts within both the two staff teams (one office team in Canada and the other in Sweden) and within the elected members on the World Council.
[2] In 1983 Disabled Peoples' International filed a complaint against the United States with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights due to a brief military intervention in Grenada where a mental institution was bombed by the United States, injuring six and killing sixteen people.
This project sold baby chicks to people with disabilities to rear so that they could earn an honest living and make a tangible contribution to society.