Fifteen youth with disabilities gathered in Dhaka for a photography workshop organized by Social Assistance and Rehabilitation for the Physically Vulnerable (SARPV), Dhaka on 25 February 2005 and continued to photograph their lives and the lives of other persons with disabilities around Bangladesh. Their work was displayed at the central exhibition in Dhaka and was shown in London, UK in January, 2005. Young people participating in the workshop came from all over Bangladesh and are representatives of disabled peoples' organizations covering all types of disabilities.
Source: www.sarpv.net
This meeting was held subsequent to resolution 59/198 of 20 December 2004, where the General Assembly decided to hold two sessions prior to the 6th session of the Assembly. The Ad Hoc Committee addressed issues such as children with disabilities, education, accessibility, and personal mobility, which also covered the rights to health and rehabilitation, work, social security, adequate standards of living, as well as participation in political and public life, cultural life, recreation, leisure, and sport. A major aspect of the drafting of the Convention was the participation of national human rights institutions and non-governmental disability organizations from around the world. The Ad Hoc Committee agreed to continue at its 6th session scheduled from 1 to 12 August 2005.
Source: www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/rights/ahc5sideevents.htm
Forty-one blind people participated as navigators in the 16th Annual Rally for the Blind in Chennai. Navigators gave instructions to their drivers from Braille print-outs. The 70 kilometers route covered central Chennai and the city suburbs. It was a close rally with three joint winners declared in the expert category. Many participants gave feedback saying that this rally gave them a sense of experience, purpose and power.
The theme was "Education for All: So Near Yet So Far" focusing on access, training and resources. The East Asia regional conference was organized by the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI) with support from the Foundation for the Employment Promotion of the Blind. Approximately 250 people, experts, specialists, and educators from 19 countries in the Asia and the Pacific region working with disability-related organizations participated especially in the field of visually impaired persons. The main objective was to seek ways on how to make Education for All children with visual impairment a reality in the Asia region by 2015.
Plenary sessions focused on access to education, services, and resources. The sub themes included inclusive education, Multiple Disabilities and Visually Impaired (MDVI), vocations, family support, teaching methodology, technology, and early intervention.
This training course, coordinated by Actionaid India Society, Bangalore, was intended for Program Managers of organizations and projects in developing countries. It was designed to equip the participants with necessary knowledge and the basic skills to initiate, monitor, develop, and strengthen CBR programs. In addition to facilitating information exchange, participants were oriented towards Information Dissemination, Networking, and Advocacy related to Disability Rehabilitation and CBR. Participants were middle and senior level professionals from the Government, NGOs and individuals interested in disability work.
The Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT) announced the winners of the 5th Pacific Human Rights Awards presented in Suva, Fiji by His Excellency Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, Vice President of Fiji, for their extraordinary efforts in advancing Human Rights throughout the region. Regarding disability-related matters, the Fiji Disabled People's Association won the 2nd Runner Up Award for asserting the rights of people with disabilities to employment.
Source: DPI-Oceania
The National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) met to assess the outcome of their 5 years pilot project to establish an Assistive Technology Center for persons with disabilities initiated on 15 August 2000.
The objectives were to report the outcomes of the past 5 years of the Assistive Technology Center (ASTEC), to pool ideas and opinions among researchers, entrepreneurs, persons with disabilities, and the elderly to point trends of research and development in the new decade, and to have products from the research available to persons with disabilities. Participants were researchers, industrial entrepreneurs, persons with disabilities/ disabled peoples' organizations and elderly persons.
Each working group gave a presentation on how they applied technology for each type of disability. Seven groups were comprised of Assistive Technology for Visually Impaired Persons, Hearing Impaired Persons, Physically Impaired Persons, Disabled Students, Accessible Information, Speech Technology and Augmentative, Alternative Communication, Smart Home/Office, and Universal Design.
The seminar also discussed problems that persons with disabilities face when they access the Internet and possible ways to solve them. This resulted in forming three projects; "Promotion on Accessible Website Development of Governmental and Disability-related Organizations", "Promotion on Accessible Website Development of General Websites", and "Research and Development on User-friendly Web Browser".
Uzbekistan-Japan Center in cooperation with the Deaf Association of Tashkent has organized and currently conducts a computer course for deaf and persons with hearing loss. It will provide deaf and persons with hearing loss an opportunity to study computer literacy and office software, which can help them obtain appropriate work with good pay since at the present time computer skills are often required to get employment. Currently, there are 18 trainees along with a sign language interpreter taking this course. Trainers do not deliver the lecture in oral form but write all contents and show all operations on their computer. Trainees can see both the lecturers' activities and the text of the lecture on additional demonstration monitors installed near each workstation. The Center is planning to continue this sort of training to help persons with hearing loss to more successfully integrate into society.
The Free Wheelchair Mission (FWM), a California-based non-profit organization, has delivered its first lot of wheelchairs to victims with disabilities of the tsunami disaster in India. The Mission delivered 2,750 wheelchairs to India and Sri Lanka. FWM has already delivered four containers to India, with two containers sent to Sathyam Literature Service Trust and Sathyam Mission School, in Gujarat and two containers entrusted to World Vision International to be distributed in Chennai. The FWM is currently working to send a container to Sri Lanka to be distributed by the Medical/Educational Poor Relief Community Project based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has been affected by the initial tsunami disaster, as well as landmine disasters.
Source: www.freewheelchairmission.org
Citibank offers Account Information on audio tape, Braille or large print statements and raised character or large print checks. There are headsets available at the ATMs to allow audio assistance to visually impaired persons. Citibank also offers online banking with a screen reader enabled link.
Source: Disabilitytheme
Helping Hand will promote Mongolian Sign Language through this project, which aims to develop, produce and distribute two independent learning tools for example CD ROMs and a set of wooden alphabet sign language blocks. The aim of the project is to teach the Mongolian national sign language to children and adults creatively and effectively. The project will include the following activities:
This workshop is organized by the Council of Disabled Peoples of Thailand and the Secretariat of the Disabled Peoples' International Asia-Pacific Region (DPIAP). The purpose was to provide skills and knowledge for the national assemblies to identify disability issues the region needs to address as well as strategies to create a sustainable environment for the national assemblies to accomplish their work. This meeting will be to strengthen the organizational base in the Asia-Pacific Region through a Human Rights Convention Conference, Training Sessions, and the Election of a New Regional Council and Executive Officers.
The purpose is to briefly present the technology in development to all PWDs and to comment on these tools to give organizations and journalists a chance to speak with PWDs and researchers to see these tools in action to promote networking in research in "Access for All". Presenters will be from the National Center for Technology Progress, Institute for Information Technology, Institute of Epidemiology, Sao Mai Computer Center for the Blind, and other related stakeholders.
Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) is going to hold a Workshop for the Introduction of Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) for All for various organizations in Bangladesh. The objective is to provide orientation to organizations and users about DAISY Standards and develop an annual strategic and implementation plan. Participants will be selected from GO, NGOs, the media, organizations and schools with students with visual impairments in Chittagong and other parts of Bangladesh.
The theme, "Disability Mainstreaming in Practice" hosted by the Disability Action Council, Phnom Penh, Cambodia and the Healthlink Worldwide, United Kingdom will focus on the example of disability mainstreaming in the education sector. The aim is to explore disability mainstreaming in practice and provide an opportunity for decision-makers to learn from and hear the views and experiences of people with disabilities, disabled peoples' organizations, and organizations and institutions working on disability in the South, bridging the communication gap between stakeholders at the grassroots level and policy makers. Expected participants are people with disabilities, senior level staff within local development NGOs, national and regional policy makers, representatives from international donor organizations, senior level staff with national and international organizations working on disability and development in the region.
This session will be held to test protocols and instruments for measuring disability statistics at the 3rd Workshop for Improving Disability Statistics and Measurement. Participants will involve statisticians and health experts from China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Macao, Mongolia, and the Philippines.
Accessible tourism is now a developing market, thanks to the development of transportation and the dissemination of information as well as the rising purchasing abilities of people with disabilities. People with disabilities are now the main target as global tourism develops. How to create accessible sights, develop accessible tourist activities, and construct accessible facilities are the major issues in an effort to propagate "the unity of able bodied persons and persons with disabilities" toward an inclusive society in the 21st century. The Eden Social Welfare Foundation, which has long been responsible for helping people with disabilities, is responding to the increasing trends of global tourism, especially the prosperous accessible tourism in the Asia-Pacific region. Eden sees the importance of the Asia-Pacific Accessible Tourism League (APATL) collaborating with the Asia-Pacific Disability Forum (APDF) to promote accessible tourism in the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons (2003-2012). This Conference connects Asian Pacific countries in the related issues of accessible living, transportation, education, and recreation by creating a new world of "Accessible Traveling" for persons with disabilities in Asia.
Issues to be covered consist of policy issues for the ESCAP region, key developments and activities at the regional level, least developed, landlocked, and island developing countries, management issues, technical cooperation activities of ESCAP and announcement of intended contributions, activities of the advisory committee of permanent representatives and other representatives designated by members of the commission and reports of regional intergovernmental bodies. The Subcommittee also urged the Secretariat to provide further technical expertise on capacity-building for the implementation of the Biwako Millennium Framework.
The course seeks to develop competence and skills in the participants to enable them to train functionaries for the rapid economic growth of rural people through SHG formation. The objectives are to help examine the process of community mobilization and its thrust on group formation, enable participants to learn capacity building skills for SHGs, networking with micro credit programs, and learn skills to encourage micro-enterprise creation with the help of SHG to attain sustainable community processes for development.
Source: www.aidmat.com
Enablement is operating in the field of disability and rehabilitation management and is particularly concerned with people with disabilities in lesser-developed countries. Its specific strengths lie in the areas of policy development, applied research, and training in disability and development issues. This year Enablement will continue to conduct an International Course in Management on Disability and Rehabilitation attracting rehabilitation professionals from a wide variety of countries. Service models will be compared to socio-political models of empowerment, emancipation and integration of the disabled in society. The importance of the primary health care movement and community development approach as well as community-based rehabilitation will also be addressed. The enhancement of management skills and a sound knowledge of policy development in rehabilitation are indispensable aspects to the education objectives.
Source: www.enablement.nl
