Here we meet Aylin Yumerova, legal advisor at the Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law (BCNL). Aylin is paired with Marieta Petrova and will be presenting at our upcoming workshop The Freedom to Choose: Contracts, Capacity & the Law.

My name is Aylin Yumerova.

I am from Bulgaria.

I speak Bulgarian, English, French and Turkish.

I have experience of writing about employment rights of people with intellectual disabilities and new standards provided in Art. 12 of the CRPD, and particularly about the concept for supported decision-making, analytic describing of abilities for independent decision-making by people with intellectual disabilities and mental-health problems involved in pilot projects, and how the supported-decision making reflects on their lives, as well as participating in several training institutes for advocacy and legally implementation of supported decision-making.

My 7-word autobiography is social justice and non-profit law volunteer.

I joined the VOICES project because I wanted to get first-hand experience meeting people from different countries and learning from them how do they exercise their legal capacity, what kind of difficulties they face and how they overcome the limitations of the national system. I was also interested from the research point of view to examine how the provisions and standards of Art. 12 of the CRPD were working in their daily lives.

What was your favourite part of the first workshop?

My favourite part was the session when all the participants presented themselves, moving in a circle, because this was the great time I had the chance to listen to so many interesting and touching personal stories. For me it was very inspiring to meet before me persons who were so independent and had big dreams and picks in their lives ready to reach them despite all their difficulties. I really learnt from them.

What are you hoping to learn from the project?

I hope to become better listener, to learn new approaches and to find effective and working solutions for overcoming the limitations of the Bulgarian system set before the people with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems.