- Making it Work (MIW) is a global multi-stakeholder initiative supporting the effective implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
- Source is an international information support center designed to strengthen the management, use and impact of information on health and disability.
- The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs, currently coordinated by Handicap International, is a coalition of thousands of people and U.S. non-governmental organizations working to convince the U.S. government to join the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Who We Are
1996 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Nansen Medal
“Handicap International represents humanitarianism at its best, assisting disabled people regardless of race, political opinion or religion.”–Former UNHCR High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata
In October 1996, Handicap International received the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' Nansen Medal for outstanding work with refugees.
Then High Commissioner Sadako Ogata presented the Nansen Medal, and the inaugural $100,000 monetary award, offered in 1996 by the Government of Norway, to benefit refugee and returnee victims of anti-personnel mines. She praised Handicap International's service to refugees as well as its enormous contribution to the elimination of landmines.
In announcing the award, Ogata said, “Wars leave a huge legacy when they end: These landmines don't know the difference between a soldier and a child. This abominable menace represents one of the biggest hurdles for UNHCR's repatriation programs. Without Handicap International, hundreds of repatriated refugees with disabilities from Cambodia, Mozambique and Bosnia could not have started a new life. My organization is greatly indebted to Handicap International.”
At the ceremony, on October 4, 1996, she added that Handicap International deserved the award, “First, for its innovative contributions toward alleviating the suffering of anti-personnel mine victims by providing low-cost prostheses to over 150,000 amputees around the world, many of which are refugees, internally displaced persons and returnees. Second, for its advocacy work on behalf of the victims to ban the production, sale and use of anti-personnel mines.”
One year later, Handicap International and its partners at the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) celebrated having gathered123 country signatures for the 1997 Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty. This treaty banned the deployment, stockpiling, production and sale of anti-personnel mines and ensured their destruction.
UNHCR and Handicap International have worked together since the early 1980s. Together, the organizations have run programs for refugees and returnees with disabilities, as well as awareness programs on landmines.
The Nansen Medal is named after the Norwegian diplomat and explorer Fridtjof Nansen, the first High Commissioner for Refugees under the League of Nations. The award brings attention to refugees and garners international support for forcibly displaced persons.
