Disabled Rights Group (DRG), Mumbai has been instrumental in the inauguration of a newly installed ramp at the Bombay High Court, a consequence of the Public Interest Litigations (PILs) filed to enforce implementation of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995. Thanks to the Able Disabled All People Together (ADAPT), an organization working for persons with disabilities that filed a petition at the High Court, the newly installed ramp makes the High Court accessible. A few months ago the Court ordered the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) to make 3% of its new buses disabled-friendly and to operate them on major routes.
Dr. Mehta, a leading Indian software engineer says he hopes the global scientific community can benefit from the work he is doing for the paralyzed physicist, Professor Stephen Hawking, who became an international celebrity with his book, "A Brief History of Time". The software he is developing to help Professor Hawking who is suffering from a degenerative motor neuron disease; he uses a wheelchair and special kind of custom-made software developed in order to help him communicate. This specially designed software tries to anticipate what the user wishes to type or do next. Communication through the use of this software is made possible by pressing a single computer button attached to Professor Hawking's wheelchair, allowing him to interact, move around, write, and speak. This project will become the basis of a platform to develop software for people with all kinds of disabilities in the new future.
(BBC News)
The main points of the recommendations handed to the 6th Asia-Pacific Summit, provided an important opportunity for the Governors and Mayors to meet, discuss, share experiences, and strengthen networks in city problem solving, by the Mass Transit for the Disabled (a network of persons with cross disabilities advocating for accessibility and a non-handicapping environment for persons with disabilities and the elderly). They included:
A major overhaul of facilities for persons with disabilities in Xi'an, home to the famed Ter will include signs in Braille at major tourist sites since approximately 350,000 persons with disabilities planned to invest a large budget to improve its facilities. On October 11, 2004 the Xi'an Municipal Disabled Association invited 30 people to reassess the accessible facilities in public buildings and the streets and also see what provision is being done in the reconstruction. Xi'an has approximately 348,000 persons with disabilities (4.7% of the city's total population) with 80,000 persons with visual impairments. In 2002, the State Council appointed Xi'an one of 12 cities nationwide to provide more friendly facilities. In August 2002, the local government issued a regulation concerning the construction management of this type of facility with a budget of 6 million yuan (US$720,000) given to the project. The regulation requires every newly built, rebuilt or expanded public and residential street, park, railway station, long-distance bus station and major tourist area must be accessible.
(Reference: www.chinaview.cn)
The Nepali Government has adopted the 5% job reservation for people with disabilities in the civil service. This is indeed a great achievement by people with disabilities as well as the international partners. The National Association of the Blind (NAB) has made a great effort to incorporate the issue in a drafted policy. In this regard, representatives from NAB met with the Prime Minister with a memorandum. Prior to this, NAB organized an interaction program among major political leaders with 5 political leaders present, who expressed their commitment to support the issue.
The Hanoi Deaf Club celebrated their 4th Anniversary on the 29th October 2004. They organized activities and programs teaching policies and sign language as well as independent living. (Source: Disability Forum)
A conference on implementing school tasks for year 2004-2005 was organized. The Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education and Training said "children with disability need to be taught equally as other children with classes designed to suit their disability. These classes can be fully integrated, semi-integrated, or special classes". However, schools should provide good conditions for those children to mainly study formal inclusive education. Each class should have fewer than 2 disabled students with the total number of students less than 30. Schools need to carry out classifying tasks, capacity assessment of children with disability after being received by the school. They also need to arrange teaching plans, distribute learning programs, and identify an effective teaching method suitable to each category of students.
(Source: Disability Forum)
A new and unique knowledge center that gives access to development information is now open to people with disabilities. Recently retrofitted and equipped with modern adaptive equipment and facilities, the Knowledge for Development Center (KDC), which has been operating since 2002, is now more accessible for visually impaired and other persons with disabilities. All accessibility equipment and facilities were chosen with the help of ATRIEV (Adaptive Technology for Rehabilitation, Integration, and Empowerment of the Visually Impaired).
The Himalayan Nature & Adventure Foundation engaged in promoting adventure, nature conservation, and awareness related activities in this part of India for more than 20 years, hosted a camp for physically and mentally challenged children and youth from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. The main objective was to bring these challenged children and youth close to nature and thereby help them to rediscover their hidden talents and capabilities and promote self-confidence at the end of the course. Much effort was devoted to help them overcome their disabilities and enjoy the beauty and resources of nature. The camp was held in the Darjeeling hill areas in North Bengal with more than 80 challenged youth and children.
The electronic company Samsung Vina announced that a project to build a symbol dictionary for the hearing impaired will receive financial support under the DigitAll Hope 2004 program. The Project will develop video courses for sign language, with a complementing dictionary on the CD-ROM and the Internet for acquiring definitions. It should benefit around 200,000 young people, 60% of Viet Nam's total deaf population. Brainchild of Ho Chi Minh City Teachers' Training University, the project will receive US$40,000 of the $650,000 that DigitAll will distribute among 13 projects. The other 12 receiving funding are from Australia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. DigitAll Hope is Korea's Samsung Electronics' largest social program in the Asia-Pacific region, with the goal is to narrow the digital technological gap among young people, especially persons with disabilities.
A summit of international leaders from agencies serving the reading needs of people with print disabilities was convened at the Microsoft's corporate headquarters, in Redmond, Washington, USA, from 8-10 November 2004. The summit called, "Libraries for the Blind and Print Disabled: Moving Towards a Digital Future," included representatives from more than 20 nations, agencies working in developing countries, the international publishing community, the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative and international bodies including the United Nations and the World Health Organizations. Bill Gates shared his vision of empowerment of individuals with disabilities that limit or preclude their access to the printed page. He reaffirmed Microsoft's commitment to do whatever it can to help libraries leverage new technology to convert their collections from analog to digital formats, to improve and accelerate distribution and to provide better service to people with visual impairments or have print disabilities. Forum participants made a joint commitment to work together to develop and implement a global accessible library. The library is intended to provide timely access to information, and will result in a worldwide collection of accessible reading materials.
(source: www.daisy.org)
This course was organized by DAISY for All project (DFA) with the support from the Thai Blind Peoples' Foundation. Ten trainees from 2 disability-related organizations participated in this in depth training, which is to prepare participants to train others within the DFA Project scope to produce DAISY 2.02 digital talking books and DAISY 3.0 source files. In addition, individuals completing the course will provide support for other DAISY production organizations within their region. The focus of the course is to teach the participants how to teach others to use the tools rather than simply learn how to use the tools themselves.
This conference was organized by the Bank's Disability Adviser, Judy Heumann to follow-up on the Bank's first international disability conference held in December 2002. It will take note the work done in the disability and development community over the past two years. The first objective was to demonstrate progress made by the World Bank, UN agencies, international financial institutions, the private sector, civil society, and other partners in responding effectively to disability and development issues, as well as identify the next steps in this process. The next objective was to present the results of past activities, and assess the potential of current disability work undertaken by the Bank at the sectoral, and regional levels, as well as by the hubs. The last objective was to publicize the Global Partnership for Disability & Development Initiative and the Multi-donor Trust Fund. Approximately 700 participants attended the two-day conference.
Concerned Action Now (CAN) and Times Foundation organized the annual Yellow and Blue Ribbon Campaign with Director Shalini Dewan, United Nations(UN) Information Center Director, chief guest and Ms. Uma Tuli founder and managing secretary of the Amar Jyoti Charitable Foundation, the chairperson of the Campaign. Ms. Tuli spoke about the concerns and achievements of the government and civil society in the field of disability in India. She underscored the progress made in accessibility, inclusive education, and the mainstreaming of persons with disabilities in India.
Director Dewan spoke about the role of the UN in creating an enabling environment and in working towards the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. In his vote of thanks, Bacquer said that though some positive changes have been made, much more needed to be done for persons with disabilities to realize their full potential in society.
The General Assembly started with the World Blind Union (WBU) Women's Forum from 29-30 November 2004, to give guidance to blind women at the international level and to find ways to make progress as a movement. The Forum discussed topics such as violence against blind and partially sighted women, leadership and self-advocacy. Reports were received from women from the regions with 12 new resolutions passed.
The General Assembly was opened by President Thabo Mbeki with more than 800 delegates and observers from over 160 member countries present. The Assembly discussed the WBU's progress over the past four years and adopted a new constitution with Dr. William Rowland elected as the new WBU president.
An exhibition was held to present the latest assistive technology, which included adaptive equipment, assistive solutions, and learning aids. South Africa National Council for the Blind's exhibition, entitled "Blind and Beethoven" combined Beethoven's most beautiful music with Hannan Paton's photographs visually expressing personal emotions that the music evokes in people with visual impairments. Braille accompany each piece.
(For more detail please visit: www.wbucapetown2004.org.za)
The Disability Promotion & Advocacy Association established a Caregivers Support Group which is based in Luganville, the second largest town in Vanuatu.
The purpose of the Caregivers Support Group is to provide support to caregivers and children especially in the rural areas.
Recognizing that there are many children who are deaf and cannot communicate with their parents, DPA will embark on developing a Sign Language Training Project to be undertaken by the Group.
Delhi will be a disabled-friendly and barrier-free city by the year 2008, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation Chairperson Sonia Gandhi announced while releasing a document 'Accessible Delhi - a road map 2003-2008' on the birth anniversary of the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on August 20, 2003.
The document, conceptualized in collaboration with the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People and the Council of Architecture, contains the blueprint for enabling access to all public places and facilities in the city to disabled people.
The blueprint clearly defines accessible entries and exits and reserved parking lots at railway stations. As per the plan, facilities like appointed place for disabled-friendly coaches, public telephones, availability of elevators and horizontal transport to cross over from one platform to another, and audio-visual signages will be created.
Speaking on the occasion, Sheila Dikshit said: "Delhi being the capital of India should be a role model for other cities to create a barrier-free universal design. It gives us very special honour and the responsibility to make Delhi disabled-friendly.
DNIS News Network: http://www.dnis.org
The Workshop developed the Joint Statement on Proposed Structure, Elements, and Principles of a Comprehensive and Integral Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Joint Statement clearly stated that all participants will reaffirm the critical roles of partnership in realization of the goal of full participation and equality in a society that is inclusive of people with disabilities, review the process of elaborating and negotiating the draft convention by the Ad-hoc Committee, and encourage the continued active participation and inclusion of persons with disabilities and their representatives in the on-going work leading to the adoption of the Convention. And in anticipation of the early adoption and ratification of the Convention, further encourage each government to direct a national action for timely and efficient implementation and monitoring of the Convention. The group considered themes on "Ratification/State Obligations/Application of the Convention", "Monitoring mechanism at international, regional, and national levels", "Capacity building of self-help groups and international cooperation", "Development of national legislatives and a comprehensive policy".
(For more details please visit: http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/disability/decadenew/newdecade.asp)
The workshop developed a set of "Proposed Core Indicators for Monitoring the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action towards an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific (BMF)". The main point in the joint statement is to review the progress in implementing the BMF at the inception of the renewed Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons (2003-2012). Also realizing that the review of the progress in implementing the BMF will take place at the mid-point of the Decade in 2007.
(For more details please visit http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/disability/decadenew/newdecade.asp)
Mr. Luo Xiaohu, Vice-Governor of the Gansu Province, delivered a welcome message on behalf of the Gansu Provincial Government. He added that the commencement of this workshop in Lanzhou represented the concern and support by UNESCAP for the work on disability in Gansu and China. He concluded his speech by promising that he will take this opportunity to listen to the comments from UNESCAP officials and other regional experts, learn experiences from other countries, sum up the poverty alleviation work for the PWDs, and study a possible new modality in the period ahead. The development of the "Joint Statement" as a set of regional strategies to promote the twin-track approach and integrate disability concerns into pro-poor development initiatives at the national and regional levels was the final outcome of the workshop. (For more details please visit
http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/disability/decadenew/newdecade.asp)
