PACE is based on the underlying principle that people recover from what is know as mental illness through voluntary forms of assistance directed by the individuals themselves. The cornerstone of this assistance is the development of trusting relationships, which in turn allows people to (re)capture their dreams and enables them to (re)gain a valued social role.

The Russian Federation has inherited from the Soviet Union an extensive institutional system of services and education for children that unnecessarily and improperly segregates them from society. The vast majority of children we observed within Russia's institutions and special schools could live, grow, develop, receive an education, and maintain family ties in a more integrated community environment.

The MDRI investigation was conducted during a series of site visits in 1995 and 1996 by a team of experts in disability law and psychiatry. The MDRI team spent several weeks visiting social care homes, psychiatric institutions, psychiatric wards of general hospitals, outpatient clinics, and one community-based rehabilitation program.

This report by the Mental Disability Rights International project of the American University Human Rights Center on the treatment of the mentally disabled in Uruguay is a major step in that direction. It documents the combination of neglect, indifference and outright cruelty that is perpetrated on these helpless people in one country, and it charts a strategy for change that takes into account the economic and social situation in that country.