MDRI Awards & Recognitions

• Henry B. Betts Award (2008)

Eric Rosenthal, Executive Director of MDRI was awarded the prestigious Henry B. Betts Award by the American Association of People with Disabilities. The Betts Award is named in honor of Henry B. Betts, M.D., a pioneer in the field of rehabilitation medicine who started his career with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago in 1964 and has devoted himself to improving the quality of life for people with disabilities.

• Thomas J. Dodd Award in International Justice and Human Rights (2007)
  The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut awarded MDRI the 2007 Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights Prize. MDRI was awarded for its efforts in advancing the cause of international justice and global human rights.
  
  

Programmatic Accomplishments
Since 1993, MDRI has:

• Investigated and documented human rights abuses in 23 countries throughout Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East;
  
  
• Published reports on human rights conditions of people with mental
  disabilities in Uruguay (1995), Hungary (1997), Russia (1999), Mexico (2000), Kosovo (2002), Peru (2004), Turkey (2005), Romania (2006), Argentina (2007), and Serbia (2007);
  
  
• Achieved worldwide recognition for the rights of people with mental disabilities through the media. MDRI's work has been profiled by The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN International, BBC World Service, ABC News, NBC News, Voice of America, National Public Radio, and hundreds of other papers and television programs around the world;
  
  
• Trained activists from 16 countries by holding workshops and study tours;
  
  
• Advised US and international agencies, including the U.S. Department of State, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the UN Special Rapporteur on Disability, and the US National Council on Disability, on human rights advocacy and development programs;
  
  
• Advocated for the creation and resolution of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
  
  
• An abusive psychiatric facility was closed in Mexico. The Mexican government hired an MDRI adviser to create its first government-funded, community-based mental health programs;
  
  
• A $4 million program to support community integration for children with disabilities in Russia was established by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as recommended by MDRI;
  
  
• New disability rights legislation in Hungary was adopted after the release of MDRI's report, including the formation of a human rights ombudsman system to protect people in institutions;
  
  
• Psychiatric survivors in Hungary formed a nationally recognized "disability council" to ensure the participation of people with mental disabilities in the formulation of new public policies;
  
  
• Activists brought human rights claims before international oversight agencies, including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the UN Human Rights Committee;
  
  
• Amnesty International issued an Urgent Action in October 2001 regarding a state institution in Bulgaria where MDRI and Amnesty investigators reported that among other human rights abuses, women with mental disabilities were forced to live in cages;
  
  
• The Turkish government has now made it illegal to use electroshock therapy without anesthesia. MDRI has set up the first human rights organization in the country dedicated to rights protection of people with mental disabilities;
  
  
• MDRI filed a case in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to seek the emergency release of several persons detained in life threatening conditions in the Neuro-psychiatric Hospital in Paraguay;
  
  
• The government of Paraguay has agreed to restructure its entire mental health system;
  
  
• The government of Kosovo has pledged to close Shtime Institution (the largest in Kosovo) with our assistance;
  
  
• The largest “peer recovery” support group in Eastern Europe was formed;
  

MDRI has organized a continuum of over 60 Serbian community groups to create pressure on the government to enact reforms and deinstitutionalize the mental disability system, thus promoting community integration.