A Canberra-based advocacy organisation is hoping people power will help them raise enough money to build a new app aimed at making decision-making easier for people with disabilities.
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Advocacy for Inclusion has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $25,000 to build an interactive app supporting people with disabilities with a step-by-step decision-making process they can easily understand and use on their own or with support from a carer.
General manager Christina Ryan said it was hoped the app would help give people with disabilities greater independence and more control of their own lives.
"That independence, that much greater level of control over their own lives is actually crucially important for the health and wellbeing of people with disabilities," she said.
"We're talking about a group of people in Canberra who have a 48 per cent rate of mental illness and the reason they've got such a high rate of mental illness is because they actually don't have much control over their lives, they feel very much like their lives are happening without them ... so if we can break through that barrier and get people more in to the middle of their own lives, where they're running the show, they ask for help when they need it and the app will help them to identify they should do that, then they're actually going to be much happier and healthier people.
"There's a lot of support in the Canberra community for people with disabilities to be more involved in the community so this is a tool to really help that outcome be achieved."
Ms Ryan said each person made on average 30,000 decisions a day, but many people with disabilities had decision-making taken away from them.
"Increasingly we're being told by the people with disabilities who we work with that they do want to make their own decisions," she said.
Ms Ryan said the app would help people to make large as well as day-to-day decisions, such as about meals or social outings.
Research and planning work on the app has been completed and all money raised will go towards Supported Decision Making app. A Canberra company has been selected to build the app, which will be available on tablet or smartphone in both IOS and Android format.
For a $10 donation, people will get their name on Advocacy for Inclusion's website, while for $25 they will receive a hand-written letter of gratitude on a card designed by a person with a disability. For $50, people will receive a pack of five cards designed by a person with a disability and $100 will get them an Advocacy for Inclusion Ask Me T-shirt.
To donate, visit chuffed.org/project/sdmapp.
