#mobilitymovesminds

More than ever travelling and mobility are parts of our lives. A luxury life being possible because of the freedom of choosing where to go, when to and how to move. From cultural interests, business trips, products that reach us directly on our dining table to a weeklong art experience, we expect an experience, a will-do inspiring offering that is affordable, enjoyable, on-time and exciting. We expect a destination experience offered by the ecosystems around the world with an all-inclusive community-opens-up-its-assets-for-us attitude. We look here into physical mobility as first element of the resilience triangle.

A pandemic incident, like any other disastrous event abruptly ends our freedom of choosing. It rips off our safety shield. No one would have thought what it meant to be caught in a bubble of inactivity like what we experience throughout the Corona crisis. We never could have imagined what we will be missing. Zero safety shields turn the light on our vulnerability. They move us into the shadows. Into the shadows of streets, building corners, solitude, and nearly zero communication. Mental mobility is reduced to a minimum with least experience, positive momentums and brick walls become literally our mental walls. Mental mobility is the second element of regaining resilience.

We ask us what we might be missing if we did not have the means to afford mobility. We ask ourselves what it takes to turn back mobility into a substantial asset and public good for everyone – during and post the pandemic. Many words are spoken by governmental and economic stakeholders. First attempts are made to revitalize businesses through financial aid and funding programs. Second attempts looking into the digital world of mobility are hardly made. We find individual mobility moves throughout video call and conferences. Cargo wise we miss the element of digital supply chains and modular production and supply. Digital mobility complements physical and mental mobility as third element of the triangle.

Leveraging physical, mental, and digital mobility, any ecosystem being large city, municipality, or community is being confronted with the transformation of turning elements into assets, and assets into offerings. More than ever, is resilience re-build a cross-sectoral, public, private, and shared effort.

We live in dynamic times where information and digital technologies are rapidly changing the way we do day to day tasks and activities. The basis and backbone of the change is the evolution of technology from physical to digital.

How will ecosystems climb back the ladder to reach back their resilience equilibrium? Travel, transport, communication, migration have always been integral part of people’s lives, and we are grouping all these aspects under the definition of an affordable and consumable mobility, regardless of budget, handicap, age, and geography. Industry, innovation, and technology are all changing, and also evolving inter-dependently. This is all happening under the umbrella of our structural ecosystems, the villages and cities, the communities and municipalities. But they are at risk. Take the tourism sector: the drama is not a tourist industry restricted drama due to the lockdown and pandemic impact cycles! The drama started already putting entire villages and regions at the border of existence. What does it take to turn these ecosystems into self-sustaining ecosystems with their own contextual safety shields?

Self-sustaining ecosystems will demonstrate re-invention and the new normal of innovation, which concludes in a novel manner how constituents, visitors, guests, and natural resources interact more meaningful and heads up. Our understanding of mobility means, intermodal, smart and sustainable mobility will expand massively way beyond the physical hybrid car, the self-driving autonomous people mover, the industrial cycle of reproduction and circular supply chain.

We are facing in our communities an increasing number of homelessness due to several reasons. In our daily rush we overlook those that are stuck. The longer it takes to get back into the working and moving society, the harder it gets to break the boundaries and morph limits into chances. With respect to health and social infrastructure – we are created to move and spend energy. Hunting for food is still a “habit” for homeless people and the ones lose their home due to private debt and businesses running out of customers onsite. Now we are experiencing de-mobility – food comes to us with a phone call or a mouse click. Instead of healthy moves, we wait to be served. What is the use of technology anyhow? Are we really turning solutions and cloud services up to the point of rebuilding resilience? How will cities reshape their resilience streams – digitally, physically and mentally?

We hereby dedicate an initiative called #mobilitymovesminds short #mmm to the efforts of rebuilding resilience on personal and organizational level. We will be leveraging the human voices of the street, analyzing ecosystems and the systems of collaborative social responsibility, resilience design and execution. Furthermore we focus on identifying resilience patterns that can be leveraged by any community being big or small, by any stakeholder being private or public sector, to ultimately end corner-stone living on the streets and end poverty.

Our #mobilitymovesminds initiative results covers in a printable and digital book and website format covering the following:

  • Voices of the street, governmental and private institutions

  • Research on mobility and further elements of employed and unemployed individuals

  • Analysis of mobility involved patterns that stimulate people to move on, investigating the role of mobility and its influence, roadblock and effort

  • Requirements analysis to designing new businesses in collaboration with homeless people

  • Designing a social business framework

  • Publishing and disseminating the results including field runs and social business model framework in print and podcast formats

We ask for your support to make the #mobilitymovesminds happening and giving back a resilience patterned framework to the suffering ecosystems of the globe.

We are estimating a 15.000 € effort to write, design, publish and make mobility moves minds come true. Barbara will be herein opening work opportunities for homeless peers of #HomelessEntrepreneur. Furthermore, throughout the process of #mobilitymovesminds Barbara will be launching this resilience framework to steer the process of rebuilding resilience in communities. This results in publication formats book, podcast, and transcripts. The costs we need to cover the core part of our efforts are €15.000.

With your donation starting of €50 your personal story will be covered. Barbara will interview you and let you speak up.

With your donation starting of €420 you and your local ecosystem, being city or village, will be included in our analysis, finding entry in social business framework and ultimately being covered among a total of 20 ecosystem stories in the book.

Turn the light on for you and your community, being a village or city.

You have further questions? Or like to support now, here we are

Barbara

barbara.fluegge@dvcconsult.com +41 (0) 79 820 2473

"Cities Need Universal Basic Mobility, Medical Tourism and Equality"

In Switzerland with my f permit, I am limited in many opportunities like access to study or work, right to travel.

People need easy access to work and to essential services to live decent, independent lives. Cities need Universal Basic Mobility. It’s a human right.
— Jeff Makana, #HomelessEntrepreneur correspondent in Switzerland

Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country, and to leave the country and return to it.

This makes me feel like a homeless person because it limits me from trying, for instance, to build a small business. Out of this desperation I have, as an independent publisher, looked at various social exclusion themes, like invisibility of immigrants or homelessness in the bigger cities in Switzerland to do digital storytelling.

Jeff doing therapeutic photography in Basel in 2020

Jeff doing therapeutic photography in Basel in 2020

However, as a f permit holder, I have a studio apartment. I get assistance with rent for a studio apartment and medical insurance. I also get social assistance which equals to 10 chf a day, however, these are poverty margins. That being said, I am appreciative, but think economic empowerment is what most people desire.

So under these circumstances, it's impossible to get a business idea off the ground. Please note that I found out some years back that in Switzerland anyone residing here can start a sole proprietorship and don't have a tax obligation till s/he hits 100k (chf) in profits. And if I had business generating this kind of revenues then I can have an opportunity apply for a residence permit. I do also immensely appreciate Switzerland’s humanitarian gesture, which provides this social assistance support to us which is not typical for homeless folks.

I have an entrepreneurial spirit and have started a successful sole proprietorship in Minnesota doing abstract and title searches for banks and title insurance companies.

With my spirit in creativity while working as a medical coordinator, I built a very good relationship with hospitals and doctors, and using my experience from the US, I decided to research the medical tourism industry and saw a good niche with good disruption potential.

But how do you get a business of the ground with 400 (chf) a month? It seems like an uphill task because of limited cash flow.

In the USA, jobs are easier to find and this helps in generating income to support a small side-business that you eventually allows you to transition from working a side job to being independent.

According to established studies, the medical tourism industry is growing, "With more than 37 million health-related trips and the generation of more than €33 billion each year, medical tourism has become an important niche market."

"Currently, the number of self-paying patients from abroad who travel to Switzerland to seek health care is estimated to be around 0.5-5% of all patients being treated by the Swiss healthcare system. Though this number is small, these patients are considered valuable from financial point of view. They also contribute to education and training of health care professionals and help build reputation of Switzerland as a destination for excellence in health care."

"The unique qualities of Swiss health services that attract patients from abroad are technologically advanced medical infrastructure, highly trained health care professionals, belief in ‘Swiss quality and precision’, strong commitment to protect the privacy of patients while caring for their health needs in a holistic and ‘exclusive’ manner and stable socio-political environment. The main challenge to attract patients from abroad is the high cost of health care in Switzerland as compared to neighboring countries even though many argue that Switzerland provides better quality to price ratio."

Jeff in a human rights summit in 2010.

Jeff in a human rights summit in 2010.

People with psycho-social disabilities and homeless face similarities in social economic injustices and often revolve around bureaucracies in social services.

Around the world, governments are pressing pause on disabled and homeless peoples’ ability to make the most basic of decisions, through a scheme called “conservatorship.”

Conservatorship, also known as “guardianship,” puts decision-making for “conserved” people in the hands of strangers who are assigned to them by the courts, or sometimes in the hands of relatives with whom they may or may not have good relationships. The process takes away their self-determination and often leaves them locked up in jail-like facilities, allegedly for their own protection."

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1948)

Article 25.1 states that: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

Jeff in a UN shadow reporting workshop in 2010

Jeff in a UN shadow reporting workshop in 2010

CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (2008)

Article 2 gives the following definition: “"Reasonable accommodation" means necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Article 5.3 states that “in order to promote equality and eliminate discrimination, States Parties shall take all appropriate steps to ensure that reasonable accommodation is provided.”

Article 9.1 (a) states that “to enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life, States Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, (…). These measures, which shall include the identification and elimination of obstacles and barriers to accessibility, shall apply to, inter alia: … (a) Buildings, roads, transportation and other indoor and outdoor facilities, including schools, housing, medical facilities and workplaces.”

Article 19 (a) states that “States Parties to this Convention recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community, including by ensuring that: (a) Persons with disabilities have the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live on an equal basis with others and are not obliged to live in a particular living arrangement.”

Article 22.1 states that “No person with disabilities, regardless of place of residence or living arrangements, shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, or correspondence or other types of communication or to unlawful attacks on his or her honor and reputation. Persons with disabilities have the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”

Article 24 – Education  5. States Parties shall ensure that persons with disabilities are able to access general tertiary education, vocational training, adult education and lifelong learning without discrimination and on an equal basis with others. To this end, States Parties shall ensure that reasonable accommodation is provided to persons with disabilities.

Article 28.1 states that “States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right without discrimination on the basis of disability.”

Article 28.2 (d) states that “States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to social protection and to the enjoyment of that right without discrimination on the basis of disability, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right, including measures:… (d) To ensure access by persons with disabilities to public housing programs.”

Human rights apply to everyone, no matter our race, belief, location or other distinction. They are universal, eternal & indivisible. One cannot pick & choose among civil, political, economic, social & cultural rights.

Let's stand up for human rights for everyone, everywhere.

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A special thanks to Jeff Makana, an #HE corresponent in Switzerland, for writing and contributing this article to our blog!

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"Work and active citizenship are integral part of the UNCRPD" Jeff Makana

My name is Jeff Makana a human rights activist and torture survivor.

I have now been living in Switzerland for the past 10yrs after being tortured in Kenya in Dec 2009 due to my work as an activist agitating for the rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities inline with the United Nations Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities(UNCRPD).

Jeff in Basel

Jeff in Basel

Work and active citizenship are integral part of the UNCRPD. Often people like myself who have experienced psychosocial disabilities are discriminated from civil and political participation and this creates unintended consequences some leading social economic exclusion.

As a survivor of torture, I believed that I will be accepted as an asylum seeker in Switzerland and get a chance to continue my life but that was not the case as my asylum was rejected despite having been invited to Switzerland as an activist to attend a UN workshop in Geneva on shadow reporting, a UN mechanism in the Universal periodic review of UN treaties. Despite the rejection of my asylum request I was granted a humanitarian permit to stay in Switzerland renewable every year. This permit categorized as permit f has it's challenges, mainly challenges with getting gainful employment or civil and political participation. In the state I live, Canton Jura immigrants can participate in local government if here for 10yrs and with an accepted asylum request or permit B to be precise.

Article 29 of the CRPD sets out the framework for persons with disabilities' participation in political and public life and stipulates that state parties shall “guarantee to persons with disabilities political rights and the opportunity to enjoy them on equal basis with others.” To achieve this, state parties should domesticate the UNCRPD. Switzerland has signed but not ratified the UNCRPD, a measure more symbolic than one that empowers persons with psychosocial disabilities. 

Jeff in Davos

Jeff in Davos

People with psychosocial disabilities have equal right to study and work, but too often this sector of the population face discrimination and fail to experience work or active citizenship. Regarding persons with psychosocial disabilities only as objects of charity and medical treatments denies us equal rights and capabilities to make our own decisions in Life, be it work or further studies or launching a small businesses. 

“At the same time, around the world, there is a long history of injustice embedded in the mental health care sector, and this provokes the challenging question of how to change current practices, which have been routinized over centuries,” writes the international team of authors led by Dr. Sebastian von Peter. This is also true today in Switzerland with marginalization of persons with psychosocial disabilities as myself struggling to find work or study opportunity to enter the highly skilled  Swiss job market and active citizenship.

A special thanks to Jeff Makana for writing and contributing this article to our blog!

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