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 To: whom it may concern.

Subject: the "Invisible Disabled Persons" movement 

Honored Sir/Madam, 

In recent years I am a partner in the disabled persons' struggle, in which I participate, aimed at raising disability benefits to a level which will allow us, disabled persons in Israel, to reach a minimal dignified lifestyle. 

As part of this struggle, I came, on July 10th, 2018, to a session of the Knesset's Transparency Committee about public housing. This date also marks the Public Housing Day. 

At the committee I met a woman named Tatyana Kaduchkin, who established a social movement called "Nitgaber" ("We Shall Overcome") – a movement trying to promote the rights of invisible disabled persons – that is, people suffering from severe medical problems, as well as severe disabilities, but at a first superficial glance, nothing could be noticed about their disability, and they look just like any other person. The fact that there people's (including my own) disability is externally invisible causes, in practice, discrimination and the refusal to provide them with many rights given to other disabled persons – governmental institutions often adopt very superficial and shallow approaches, leading to marking the people in this group as supposedly "healthy". This unjust refusal of rights based on external appearance alone is, of course, the inevitable result of this process. 

In our new movement, the "Nitgaber" movement, we try to fight this wide refusal to provide us with rights, to raise awareness for this subject in the general public, as well as among Israeli decision makers. 

For this reason, I share this message in social media – and I will be grateful if any person coming across it to further share it on social media, internet forums, and as many frameworks as possible. 

And before I will finish, one more detail: the phone number of the movement's founder, Mrs. Tatyana Kaduchkin, is 972-52-3708001 and she is available from 11 AM to 8 PM on these days. 

Yours, 

Assaf Binyamini 

115 Costa Rica st., 

Entrance A – Apartment 4, 

Kiryat Menachem 

Jerusalem, ZIP Code: 9662592 

Telephone numbers: 

Home - 972-2-6427757. 

Mobile - 972-58-6784040.

Fax - 972-77-2700076. 

P.S.: 

1) My ID number: 029547403 

2) My e-mail addresses: 

[email protected] or: [email protected]  or:  [email protected] or: [email protected] or: [email protected] 

3) The therapeutic institution I am treated at: 

"Reut" NGO – "Avivit" Hostel 

6 Haavivit st., 

Kiryat Menachem, 

Jerusalem, Zip Code: 9650816 

Phone numbers at the hostel offices: 

972-2-6432551 or: 972-2-6428351 

Hostel's e-mail address: [email protected] 

4) The "Avivit" Hostel's social worker, when I met her on Tuesday, December 12th, 2017, on 1:30 PM, forbade me to provide any details about her and/or other employees of the "Avivit" Hostel or the "Reut" NGO. 

5) My treating general practitioner: 

Dr. Michael Halab 

"Clalit Medical Services" – "Borochov" Clinic 

KIryat Yovel 

Jerusalem, ZIP Code: 9678150 

Clinic office phone number: 

972-2-6440777 

Clinic office fax number: 

972-2-6438217 

6) Additional personal details: Age: 47. Marital status: Single. 

Date of birth: November 11th, 1972. 

7) Below is a short explanation of the "Nitgaber" movement, appearing in press: 

Tatyana Kaduchkin, an ordinary citizen, decided to establish the 'Nitgaber' movement to help those she calls the 'Invisible Disabled Persons'. So far, approximately 500 people from all parts of Israel have joined her movement. In an interview to Channel 7 she tells about the project and about those disabled persons who do not receive proper and enough assistance from the relevant parties, only because they are invisible. 

She says that the disabled population can be divided into two groups: disabled persons with a wheelchair and disabled persons without a wheelchair. She defined the second group as 'Invisible Disabled Persons', as, she says, they do not receive the same services provided to disabled persons with wheelchairs, despite being defined as having 75%-100% disability. 

These people, she explains, cannot earn their own living, and they require the assistance of further services to which disabled persons with wheelchairs are entitled. For example, invisible disabled persons receive low disability benefits from the National Insurance Institute and do not receive certain additions, such as special services benefits and mobility benefits, and they also receive lower benefits from the Ministry of Housing. 

According to research carried out by Kaduchkin, these 'Invisible Disabled Persons' are destitute despite the attempt to claim that in 2016's Israel no one goes hungry. Her research also shows that their suicide percentages are high. In the movement she established, she works to add the 'Invisible Disabled Persons' to the public housing waiting list. This because, she says, they usually do not enter these lists, despite being formally entitled to this. She holds many meetings with Knesset members and even participates in the sessions and discussion of relevant Knesset committees, but she says that the people who can help do not listen, and those who listen are in the opposition and thus are powerless to help. 

She now calls to more and more 'Invisible Disabled Persons' to join her, so that she could assist them. She estimates that if things will continue as they are today, there will be no recourse but to hold a disabled persons' demonstration to demand their rights and their basic livelihood.