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Director of Eastern European Programs
+353 8729 04662 and +377 (0)44 126 255 | dpallaska@mdri.org
Dea Pallaska O’Shaughnessy serves as Director of MDRI’s Eastern European Programs. She is a former medical student at the University of Prishtina in Kosovo. She first joined MDRI as a translator in September 2000, on MDRI's first fact-finding mission to Kosovo. Her interest in advocating for the rights of persons with mental disabilities evolved throughout MDRI's two-year investigation, during which she served as a translator and researcher, as well as co-author on MDRI's report, Not on the Agenda: Human Rights of People with Mental Disabilities in Kosovo (2002).
In January 2003, Ms. Pallaska O'Shaughnessy was appointed Country Director for MDRI's Initiative for Inclusion in Kosovo. She was responsible for setting up MDRI’s office in Prishtina, and establishing and maintaining relationships with other local and international non-governmental organizations, as well as with the Kosovo Government. During this time she started the first ever women’s peer support group for women who have spent time in psychiatric institutions, many, victims of war-related trauma and trained members of Handikos, the leading physical disability organization in Kosovo, to work with people with developmental disabilities, which has resulted in three, peer support/self-advocacy groups being formed. Dea has co-authored a document for the Prime Minister’s Office, which served as a framework for the formation of a Kosovo National Council on Disability, made up of people with disabilities, to be the advisory body on disability policy to the government. She has also advised the offices of the Minister of Health and the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare on the transition of people out of Shtime into small, community-based group homes; conducted human rights monitoring trainings for the Board of Visitors, or the appointed government monitors charged with the human rights protection of people with mental disabilities.
Additionally, Dea has lectured at the University of Prishtina’s Department of Psychology on the human rights protection of people with mental disabilities and on their transition of services from institutional to community-based services. She has trained local non-governmental organizations on mental disability, human rights monitoring and on how to include people with mental disabilities into their programs. She continuously did human rights monitoring and reporting of conditions in Shtime, small group homes; social care facilities and psychiatric units. In addition to her work in Kosovo, Ms. Pallaska O’Shaughnessy was involved in investigations of human rights abuses in orphanages, social care and psychiatric facilities in Turkey and Serbia, and has participated in several regional mental disability rights conferences.
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