Opinion

All 50 US States Needed RIGHT NOW to Support International Disability Rights!

Posted on 28 July 2012. Filed under: Announcements, Cross-Disability, Human Rights, Opinion | Tags: call to action, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, disability rights, international disability rights, US, USA |

Author’s Note: The following post is slightly adapted from a note I posted in Facebook.

One billion people with disabilities live on Earth–and 54 million of us live in the United States. But throughout history, people with disabilities have often met profound challenges including the high risk of poverty, exclusion from opportunities to access an education or employment, violence, forced confinement in institutions, and more.

Thursday last week, July 26, 2012, was a historic date for those of us who are Americans with disabilities and for the people who are our friends, relatives, colleagues and other peers. It was the 22nd anniversary that the world’s first disability civil rights legislation was passed–the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). But it also was the day that the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee agreed to pass the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to the full Senate for a floor vote. In other words, we are now in a new and exciting phase of the campaign for US ratification of the CRPD. This means that all 100 US senators will be asked to vote on if the US should ratify the CRPD. We need a two-thirds majority–67 votes. It is time for every US citizen who cares about the human rights of people with disabilities all around the world, including fellow Americans, to tell your Senators to support the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)–even if you have already asked them. Your calls, emails, and visits to your senators are absolutely vital. Opponents of this important international treaty, which was inspired by our own ADA, have been spreading incorrect information to senators in an attempt to convince them to vote against the CRPD. Your voices … our voices … are essential to telling senators that those of us who have disabilities, or who care about people who do, want them to support the CRPD.

The Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. Ask to be connected to your Senator’s office and call both Senators!

Or, you can find Senators’ contact information at this link:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Please remember to reach out to BOTH of the senators that represent your state.

Want to learn more about the CRPD and why the US should ratify? Visit a FAQ on the CRPD. Also learn the latest news about the campaign for US ratification of the CRPD, or look up which organizations support this treaty.

Sign on to a national letter for individuals and organizations in the US who support the CRPD–visit
http://www.usicd.org
(scroll a little down the screen to the blurb entitled “Tony Coelho Calls on You to Sign a Letter of Ratification”). At usicd.org you will find a link to the full letter as well as links for individuals or for organizations to sign the letter.

After talking with your senators and signing the letter, please spread the word as widely as you can! Tell all your friends to do the same! We need as many people as we can talking to their senators! Use Facebook, twitter, emails, phone calls … whatever works for you.

Thank you all for your help!

Author’s Note: To international friends outside the US: The fate of US ratification of the CRPD is going to be decided by US senators who ultimately represent the people who voted them into office, thus this call to action is meant to reach out to US citizens who care about the CRPD and who also have the power to influence the decisions of the senators who represent their interests in the US federal government.

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Why Fight Disablism? A Global Perspective: Blogging against Disablism Day (BADD) 2012

Posted on 1 May 2012. Filed under: Cross-Disability, Human Rights, Inclusion, Opinion | Tags: ablism, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, disability, disablism, exclusion, Inclusion, international disability issues, marginalization, social attitudes, USICD |

Why fight disablism?

The short answer takes one paragraph: Because disablism is more than just an attitude. Because when people hold disablist attitudes toward people with disabilities, people with disabilities are excluded, isolated, left out, left behind, and pushed to the margins of society. Disabled people are hurt in physical ways that can leave bruises, rope burns, broken bones, and even dead bodies. And people with disabilities also are hurt in not so physical ways that, sometimes they say are even worse.

The long answer would have to involve listening to one billion people on the face of the Earth describing the one billion ways that disablism impacts their lives. Because one billion is the number of people with disabilities living in the world today. And, chances are, all of them would have a slightly different answer to what disablism means. And it’s not just disabled people and their loved ones who think that various forms of prejudice that people with disabilities is an important issue. Two major international organizations—the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO)—have this to say about the effects of the social inequities that people with disabilities experience daily:

“Across the world, people with disabilities have poorer health outcomes, lower education achievements, less economic participation and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities. This is partly because people with disabilities experience barriers in accessing services that many of us have long taken for granted, including health, education, employment, and transport as well as information.”

They cite many inter-related causes for these effects. And these include negative attitudes that others may sometimes hold toward people with disabilities:

“Beliefs and prejudices constitute barriers to education, employment, health care, and social participation. For example, the attitudes of teachers, school administrators, other children, and even family members affect the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools. Misconceptions by employers that people with disabilities are less productive than their non-disabled counterparts, and ignorance about available adjustments to work arrangements limits employment opportunities.”

If you want to read their evidence for yourself, check out the World Report on Disability that the World Bank and WHO released, with a big media splash, in September 2011:
http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/report/en/index.html

This publication is available in any of the major United Nations languages, namely, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese

I’m fortunate that my passion for international disability rights coincides with my career path: I’m now at an organization based in Washington, DC, called the U.S. International Council on Disability (USICD). When people ask me what the U.S. International Council on Disabilities (USICD) does, there are a few basic answers I could give. I can say that USICD works to mobilize the U.S. disability community to become more engaged with the international disability rights movement. It works to promote U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which is the first legally binding international human rights treaty to specifically protect the human rights of people with disabilities. It promotes disability inclusion in U.S. foreign assistance programs abroad. And, via the Global Disability Rights Library (GDRL) project, which I manage, we are working to deliver disability rights knowledge to advocates and policy makers in developing countries who have limited Internet connectivity. No, it’s not an “anti-disablism” organization per se. But I suspect that its mission would align well with the values of many of the people participating in the 2012 edition of Blogging Against Disablism Day (BADD).

I’ll probably spend a good part of May browsing through the many excellent blog posts I anticipate will be presented as part of this year’s Blogging against Disablism Day (BADD) on May 1, 2012. For the past several years, this event has been hosted by the disability blogger at “Diary of a Goldfish”, which means her blog is the go-to link for finding all the other BADD posts for 2012. (And for archived BADD posts from past years also.) Usually a hundred or more bloggers participate, all with something fresh to say about what disablism means to them. Many are themselves people with disabilities. Many other bloggers are friends, families, and allies of disabled people. I hope you will explore the other BADD contributions, also! In past years, most participating bloggers have been from developed countries. But I hope that bloggers from developing countries will also consider making contributions to the event, either this year (it’s not too late!) or in future years. Enjoy the day!

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International Day of Mourning and Remembrance: Institutionalized Lives of People with Disabilities–Forgotten Lives and the Ones Who Fight Back

Posted on 23 January 2012. Filed under: Announcements, Cognitive Impairments, Cross-Disability, Events and Conferences, Human Rights, Inclusion, Opinion, Psychiatric Disabilities | Tags: advocacy, Amanda Baggs, Dave Hingsburger, deinstitutionalization, disability rights, Down Syndrome, institionalized populations, institutions, people with disabilities, Sandra Jensen |

Blogger Dave Hingsburger is trying to make today, January 23, the first of what he wants to be an annual event in which we remember together people with disabilities who have lived in institutions and, in some cases, died in them. Another blogger, Amanda Baggs, has also written extensively about her own experiences inside places that others label as “institutions”–and also some places that weren’t labeled “institutions” but were just as bad: I encourage readers to read today’s post at her blog, “What Makes Institutions Bad.” Today, in Dave’s proposal, is meant to be a day to remember the people that we were meant to forget: people placed in institutions, not to help them, but to isolate them from so-called “normal” people. And, it is meant to remember people who have been “put away” supposedly for “their own good,” people who others think “cannot live in the community” as if being human were not enough to qualify one to live among other humans. It is meant to mourn the lives that people with disabilities could have led if they had been allowed to live in their own homes and allowed choice and self autonomy. It is important to emphasize that the day is meant not only to consider people institutionalized years ago, in a time we think we can safely forget because we assume it belongs only in the past. It is also meant to consider the millions of people worldwide, in both developing and also developed countries, who continue to be institutionalized today due to no crime other than being different, being someone who others has labeled as “disabled.”

Dave also means this day as a day to celebrate people with disabilities who have fought back against the mentality that strives to push them to the margins of society, making it easier to institutionalize them. In this context, Dave Hingsburger mentions a woman named Sandra Jensen who fought literally for her life when she was initially denied a heart transplant simply because she had Down Syndrome. Sandra, already a disability rights advocate, fought back and won her transplant in 1996–and also won change in organ transplant policies in Canada. In addition to individuals Sandra Jensen, I can also think of certain organizations that work hard to promote de-institutionalization and other closely related causes: Disability Rights International (DRI), ADAPT, MindFreedom International, World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP), various chapters of People First worldwide, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, and others. I have probably missed many other organizations that are also devoted to ending institutionalization: feel free to mention them in the comments area below.

If these organizations don’t choose to carry forth Dave’s proposal, or if these international and national bodies like the concept but choose a different date or take the idea in a different direction, then Dave’s International Day might well still catch on at some local organizations scattered throughout Canada, US, the UK, and Australia. Dave, after all, has been in the field of intellectual disability and disability rights for more than 30 years: he has delivered hundreds (possibly thousands) of lectures around the world, his blog reaches thousands more readers every month, and some of his many books are required reading in some training programs for future service providers who will be working with people with disabilities. Dave is certainly not without some clout and influence all on his own. But without the support of large and highly visible organizations, his concept could remain a relatively obscure event known only in certain circles in certain cities in, predominantly, English speaking developed countries. It will spread only slowly, if at all, to non-English speaking countries or to developing countries.

Also critical to the success of this event in the future is the International Disability Alliance (IDA) and its member organizations. IDA, as many of We Can Do’s more regular readers probably already know, is a major umbrella organization for various international disability organizations that include WNUSP (listed above), the Disabled Peoples’ International (an organization run by people with various disabilities, with national assembly members in more than 100 countries), Inclusion International (representing people with intellectual disabilities and their loved ones), World Federation of the Deaf, World Blind Union, and others. Each of IDA’s member organizations themselves have many more member organizations in dozens of countries around the world, and many of these in turn have member organizations at the local level in their countries. If some of these organizations adopt Dave’s idea, then many more organizations around the world would surely also pick it up as well–whether their local language is English, Spanish, French, or something else, whether in developed countries or in developing countries.

Is this day an event that should catch on more widely? I hesitate to issue a firm position on this issue. I do feel that it is worthwhile to have some kind of event that could prompt us, not only to mourn people who would otherwise be forgotten, and to celebrate people who have promoted the cause of freedom, but also to take some action that could help set free the many people who are still institutionalized against their will today. For this reason I do like Dave’s general concept and feel it is worthwhile putting it in front of the readers of We Can Do for their consideration. But I also feel that the issue of how to frame such an event, how to promote it, what activities should be done to acknowledge it, and what date it should be held on, should ultimately be determined by people who have themselves experienced institutionalization, or been threatened with the possibility. People with intellectual disabilities who are confined because they learn more slowly than others. People with psychosocial disabilities and people on the autistic spectrum who are confined because others view their behaviors as “bewildering” and would rather not have to see them at all than try to understand. People with mobility impairments, and people who are acquiring a range of conditions related to old age, who are institutionalized because government legislation, budgeting policies, and the medical profession make it easier to place them in nursing homes than to get support to continue living at home. People who are deaf, or blind, who may be mistaken for having other disabilities, or who others may assume are incapable of learning or being independent because they cannot hear or see. Organizations such as People First, WNUSP, MindFreedom, ASAN, ADAPT, and other international and national organizations run by people who themselves are most commonly targeted for being institutionalized come to mind. I think this is a choice that needs the involvement of many advocates and leaders around the world, not just one man–even a powerful leader like Dave Hingsburger. And not just one woman either, including me as the author of this blog site.

For now, readers may want to read a few blog posts that Dave wrote about what today’s date means to him and why he feels it is important to have an International Day of Mourning and Remembrance:

January 23: International Day of Mourning and Memory in which Dave first sets forth his proposal. Note that he seems open to revising the concept, or at least the name, for future years.

Cousin Mattie: The International Day of Mourning and Memory — Dave’s post from today, January 23, honoring the day itself.

She Never Knew: The Interviews — in which Dave presents an interview he conducted with a woman who performed a song that Dave feels fits in well with the spirit of the International Day.

I also encourage readers to consider taking a few moments–or a few hours, or days–to learn more about the reality of institutionalization today and what is being done to end it. A few of the links from above are good resources. Disability Rights International (DRI) has a huge collection of reports and videos documenting institutionalized abuses from around the world, from Ukraine to Mexico to the United States to Romania to Paraguay and elsewhere. Many People First organizations fight against the institutionalization of people with intellectual disabilities. The Global Disability Rights Library has content and links related to institutionalization of people with disabilities–particularly try the information portal of the same name (Global Disability Rights Library) and check under specific disabilities for psychosocial disabilities and intellectual disabilities. Also in the same information portal, check the section on Independent Living for some of the solutions that allow people with mobility impairments and a range of other disabilities live freely in the community instead of in nursing homes (the link goes to GDRL’s primary page on independent living, but don’t miss the sub-sections under this page with more resources). And check out some of the personal stories on MindFreedom’s website.

A blog post on institutionalization from me would be incomplete without also mentioning another blogger besides Dave Hingsburger who has taught me a great deal about what it really means to be institutionalized: Amanda Baggs. Amanda has herself been institutionalized: although most of her experience in places others would recognize as institutions was in the 1990s, she still knows people who have been institutionalized much more recently than that. And she has had experiences in places that, although technically are not institutions, can be harmful in ways she feels is very similar. Amanda’s entire blog is very well worth reading: I regularly encourage people interested in disability rights to read her blog front to back, or back to front, or inside out, or outside in, or sideways or upside down or right side up or any way at all as long as they read it, throughly and often. Both Amanda and Dave are in developed countries (the United States and Canada, respectively) and I suspect most of their contacts and most of what they have learned about disability rights is also somewhat oriented to developed countries as well. But many of the concepts that both of them wrestle with day in and day out on their blog sites and elsewhere, much of the philosophy they espouse, the values they uphold, and their insightful analysis of how even very lovely, good, kind people can still do terrible things are not bound to any one country. I suspect that disability rights advocates from any country, whether developed or developing, will find ideas of value both in Dave’s blog and in Amanda’s blog.

Here are a few of Amanda’s blog posts that have helped teach me about what it is actually like to be inside an institution, or in an environment that is harmful in similar ways:

What Makes Institutions Bad (today’s post)

Outposts in Our Heads

Everything I Need to Know in Life I learned in Institutions

Identical Behavior, Constrasting Responses

What it Means to Be Real (These events were at a day program, not technically at an institution. But apparently much of the way people in the program is treated is similar)

Being an Unperson (Not specifically about institutionalization, but the process of dehumanization described in this video does occur in many institutions)

And one more from Dave, from the perspective of a person who once worked in institutions early in his career:

Patty — In this video (deaf and hard of hearing people can read the full transcript below the video) Dave describes an incident in which he reached out to Patty, a woman in the institution where he worked, and the reactions of his co-workers.

At least one more blogger has also blogged about this day: International Day of Mourning and Memory at Lounalune. And one individual, Kristine Snider, sent Dave a video in honor of the day.

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NEWS: Manila Declaration, Asia Pacific Conference on Disability Rights Treaty

Posted on 1 June 2009. Filed under: East Asia Pacific Region, Human Rights, News, Opinion | Tags: Asia Pacific Disability Forum, Asia Pacific Regional Conference, Bangladesh, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, Disabled Peoples’ International, Fiji, Inclusion International, India, Indonesia, International Disability Alliance, International Federation of Hard of Hearing People, KAMPI, Katipunan ng Maykapansanan sa Pilipinas, Malaysia, Manila, Nepal, Philippines, Rehabilitation International, Republic of Korea, Samoa, sida, Swedish international development agency, Thailand, UN, United Nations, Vietnam, world blind union, World Federation of the Deaf, World Federation of the Deafblind, World network of users and survivors of psychiatry |

IDA – Asia Pacific Regional Conference on the CRPD Implementation and Monitoring

MANILA DECLARATION

February 11-12th, 2009

We, the delegates from The Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Samoa, Fiji, and Republic of Korea being members of Disabled Peoples’ International, Inclusion International, International Federation of Hard of Hearing People, Rehabilitation International, World Blind Union, World Federation of the Deaf, World Federation of the DeafBlind, World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, and Asia Pacific Disability Forum, all of which are members of International Disability Alliance (IDA) and participated in Asia Pacific Regional Conference on the CRPD Implementation and Monitoring, held at Manila, The Philippines on February 11-12, 2009,

We acknowledge the support of the Government of The Philippines, Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), and Katipunan ng Maykapansanan sa Pilipinas, Inc (KAMPI) for this Conference.

After due deliberation and having reached consensus on the implementation and monitoring of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) we make the following Declaration which shall be hereby referred to as the Manila Declaration 2009

GOVERNMENT
• We urge National Governments in the Asia and Pacific Region, to set the machinery in motion to ensure the signing, ratification without reservation, implementation and monitoring of the UN CRPD and the Optional Protocol;
• We further demand that the governments enact new legislation or amend existing legislation for Persons with Disabilities and related statutes to be in conformity with UN CRPD;

• We urge Public Authorities to change from a charity-based to a rights–based approach and from medical model to social model on disability as required by the UN CRPD;

• We ask all governments to initiate disability sensitization programs and to mainstream disability issues in all national agendas for the empowerment of persons with disabilities ;

• We recognize the vulnerability of all persons with disabilities with HIV/AIDS and we therefore request National Governments to address this urgent issue;

• We urge the Governments to include Children, Women and Youth with disabilities in all education and training programmes;

• We demand that Persons with Disabilities be represented through their representative organizations in law and policy making at all levels as required by Article 4 of UN CRPD;

• We recognize the positive role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the lives of Persons with Disabilities. We therefore urge the Governments to facilitate the acquisition of ICT equipments;

• We appeal for the enactment of Disability Anti Discrimination Acts in our respective Countries;

• We seek the full participation of Persons with Disabilities in the Asia-Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons (2003-2012) in order to promote the accession, implementation and monitoring of UN CRPD;

HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
We urge National Human Rights Institutions to include CRPD in their Plans and Strategies and constitute a Committee or Focal point to address Disability issues.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES
We urge International Development Funding Agencies to include Disability Dimension in all their policies and programs;

We urge International Development Funding Agencies to modify the requirements in the Agreements so as to enable DPOs to access the technical and financial support;

MASS MEDIA
We urge Mass Media to promote positive images of Rights and Concerns of Persons with Disabilities.

NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US

We Can Do received this declaration via several different sources; among them was the mailing list for the Global Partnership on Disability and Development.

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Challenges Implementing Disability Rights Treaty?

Posted on 17 May 2009. Filed under: Announcements, Call for Comments or Information, Human Rights, Networking Opportunities, Opinion, Psychiatric Disabilities, Sub-Saharan Africa Region | Tags: Abdul-Jeff Maalik Makana, Article 12, challenges, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, Daniel Hazen, implementation, Jeff Makana, Kenya, legal capacity, mental disabilities, mental health, mental illness, MindFreedom, MindFreedom Kenya, psycho-social disabilities, pyschosocial disabilities, ratification, reservations, right to legal capacity, survey, survivors of psychiatry, UN, United Nations, user, users of psychiatry |

Abdul-Jeff Maalik Makana, the Executive Director of MindFreedom Kenya, wants to learn more about the challenges that other countries experience in implementing the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Below is his appeal for information. Please respond directly to him at kenya@mindfreedom.org.

Dear All,

Greetings from non sunny Nairobi day today!

We have a challenge here in Kenya advocating for the implementation of the UN CRPD. Are other states experiencing similar challenges? What are the challenges?

I recently on a media appearence to create awareness about the work of MindFreedom Kenya & advocating for the implementation of the UN CRPD… one caller to the show reinforced the general view that persons with psychosocial disabilities have no capacity at any time to make decision (Legal capacity) though the UN CRPD guarantees legal capacity(article 12) or even supported decision making.

To quote Daniel Hazen—Human Rights and Advocacy “cease the practice of exceptionalism when it comes to human rights” meaning we cannot downplay the CRPD which is a very important rallying point for our movement.

Mental Health (MH) policies cannot be written in a vacuum…. State parties and other stakeholders should get direction that adopting certain articles of the CRPD versus the CRPD in its entirety has far reaching consequences more so article 12 (right to legal capacity) a big part of the user/survivor movement advocacy.

Lastly, why was the term psychosocial disabled adopted in the UN CRPD versus the term mentally disabled or mentally ill? Here in Africa many don’t see mental illness as a disability? Can you please help me understand how to advocate better for psychosocial disabled term to be adopted and accepted locally.

What are your views:

I am doing a Survey on supporting signing/ratification and implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by state parties without reservations.

This obligation would require that the States both refrain from actions that undermine the principles and initiate efforts which would promote them. You can also e-mail your comments directly to kenya@mindfreedom.org
Question:

As a user, a survivor. mental health worker, or human rights activist in mental health do you support the position that the CRPD is non negotiable, and that the nature of this commitment obligates state parties to completely review MH policies and legislation which relied on flawed WHO MI Principles? *

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cnR3dTlrTGFGRjFXY3g2YWhvTUJESUE6MA..

A few sampling of responses collected regarding the above question:

This obligation would require that the States both refrain from actions that undermine the principles and initiate efforts which would promote them.(MH Policy, legislation’s, new MH laws, civic education, more access to mental services at the community level, empowering of persons with psychosocial disabilities to participate equally in society without being discriminated based on disabilities).

Absolutely I support it!! Recently there have been reports that they are opening “behavioral” units in nursing homes in New York State–a way to lock us up again quietly so there won’t be too many complaints. Fortunately we noticed and… Read More now there’s a lawsuit. Good thing so many of us “suffer” from hypervigelance!! Anyway, so good to see that we’re coming together internationally. We can and will find our power no matter how hard the system tried to hold us down.

I am not sure that I can ask for the UN treaty to become nationalized, but I do agree with many of the tenets. I think that I can see where some conflicts of interest might be involved. So better person by person, not this group or that. That is what I think….

With kind regards,

Abdul-Jeff Maalik Makana

__________________________________
Abdul Maalik bin Ali formerly,
Jeff Makana

Executive Director,
MindFreedom Kenya(MF-K)
E-mail:kenya@mindfreedom.org
website:
http://www.mindfreedomkenya.interconnection.org

Follow me on twitter@ www.twitter.com/Jeffmakana

Thank you to Abdul Maalik bin Ali for submitting this announcement for publication at We Can Do.

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Why Obama Matters Globally

Posted on 18 November 2008. Filed under: Call for Comments or Information, Human Rights, Opinion, Opportunities, Policy & Legislation, Poverty | Tags: Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, disability inclusion, foreign assistance programs, Human Rights, Obama, poverty reduction programs, US |

The new US President-elect Barack Obama has said that the United States should “lead the world” in helping people with disabilities “take full advantage of their talents and become independent, integrated members of society.” He also has pledged to sign the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and to urge the US Senate to ratify it. If the United States does indeed ratify the CRPD, disability advocates in other countries would then be able to point to this fact when pressuring their own governments to do the same.

Obama’s election could have important implications for people with disabilities not only across the United States but possibly also in other countries. But we will only reap the full benefits of his presidency if he follows through on all his promises to people with disabilities. Most politicians, at least in democratic countries, are more quick to follow through on their promises when they know that both people in their own country and also people around the world are watching them.

Accordingly, people with disabilities and our loved ones, colleagues, and allies from both across the United States and all countries around the world are being encouraged to send emails to Barack Obama’s team. You can send an email to Kareem Dale, Obama’s National Disability Vote Director (at kdale@barackobama.com), WITH COPIES TO Anne Hayes, a volunteer on the Obama Disability Policy Committee (at ahayesku@hotmail.com). If you wish, you may read other people’s emails to Obama for inspiration.

In your letters to Obama, you may wish to urge him to move quickly to sign the CRPD. Or, you may wish to urge him to remember to ensure that all US foreign assistance and poverty reduction programs are actively inclusive of people with disabilities in their design and implementation. What would it mean to the disability community in YOUR country if the US were to sign and ratify the CRPD? Share your ideas. Have you observed US-funded foreign assistance programs in your country that were not fully inclusive of people with disabilities? Share your stories with Obama’s team.

If you need more detail on the national and global email-writing campaign to Obama, you may wish to view the slide show program below. Or, if you have difficulty with this slide show program, then most of this text is also posted at
http://wecando.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/disabilities-email-obama/

After you write your own email to Obama, please do encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same.

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Take Action! Promote the Mainstreaming of Disability in the MDGs

Posted on 26 September 2008. Filed under: Announcements, Call for Comments or Information, Cross-Disability, Education, Health, HIV/AIDS, Human Rights, Inclusion, News, Opinion, Opportunities, Policy & Legislation, Poverty | Tags: disability, General Assembly, Global Partnership for Disability and Development, GPDD, Maria Veronica Reina, MDGs, Millennium Development Goals, people with disabilities, UN, United Nations, World Program of Action |

MEMORANDUM
TO: GPDD PARTNERS
FROM: GPDD SECRETARIAT
SUBJECT: PROMOTING THE MAINSTREAMING OF DISABILITY IN THE MDGs
DATE: 9/25/2008

The General Assembly’s sixty-third session is taking place at the UN headquarters in New York. This session marks a special occasion to highlight the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and a number of consultations and events examining multiple dimensions of MDG activities are taking place throughout the week. This presents a unique opportunity for all concerned stakeholders to advocate for the inclusion of disability in the MDGs.

Since the GA Plenary may discuss this issue from October 6 to 8, immediate action is essential. For this reason, the Secretariat of the Global Partnership for Disability and Development is:

1) Circulating a letter to UN Missions and Foreign Affairs Offices of Member States requesting Member States to make interventions and support a resolution in favor of mainstreaming disabilities in the MDGs.

2) Encouraging advocates and activists to phone, fax, or e-mail relevant government officials in their countries.

3) Sending an advisory to relevant media outlets.

We request your support in these actions as well as your suggestions.

Your ideas and participation will make a difference! A sample letter and relevant contact information are attached for your use.

FYI, a copy of the Secretary-General’s report on mainstreaming disability in monitoring and evaluation of MDGs conducted as part of the Fifth quinquennial review and appraisal of the World Program of Action concerning Disabled Persons and a short summary are attached, as well.

Sincerely,
Maria Verónica Reina
Executive Director
GPDD

Sample Letter
Disability advocates may wish to use this sample letter as inspiration when writing to the UN Mission Office for your country, or when writing to the Foreign Affairs office in your country. Find the full list of UN Mission offices, with the relevant contact information, at
http://www.un.org/members/missions.shtml
. Search the website for your government to locate the contact information for your country’s equivalent of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Dear Mr./Ms. Minister of Foreign Affairs (or Head of Delegation):
As members of the Disability and Development community, we want to encourage your government to play a substantive and active role in favor of mainstreaming Disability in the Millennium Development Goals (during the fifth review and appraisal of the World Programme of Action (A/63/183) which will be reviewed by the GA during its 63rd session (6-8 October under Social Development). The report was envisaged as a contribution to reinforcing the disability perspective in reviews of the progress made, and challenges encountered, in implementing the MDGs as requested by GA resolution 62/127.

Mainstreaming disability in the MDGs will help to ensure that no one is excluded from the processes of global development. In view of the enforcement of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, new and concerted efforts should be made in order to accomplish the advancement of persons with disability in the context of development. It is important to note the importance of promoting universal design, the design of products, environments, programmes, and services which are usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. Such increased accessibility benefits all members of society, not only persons with disabilities. Simultaneously, it is also relevant to state that disability specific programs addressing MDG concerns are also needed to guarantee the full inclusion of persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others.

For these reasons, we respectfully urge you to promote a resolution on mainstreaming disability in the MDGs during the fifth review and appraisal of the World Programme of Action at the 63rd Session of the GA.

Sincerely,

Summary Fifth review and appraisal of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons (A/63/183)
The full Fifth quinquennial review and appraisal of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons, referred to in Maria Verónica Reina’s letter, was too long to publish here. But someone also disseminated a shorter summary which is provided below.

The fifth review and appraisal of the World Programme of Action (A/63/183) will be reviewed by the General Assembly during its 63rd session(6-8 October under social development)The report was envisaged as a contribution to reinforcing the disability perspective in reviews of progress and challenges encountered in implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as requested by General Assembly resolution 62/127. The resolution also requested the Secretary-General to present proposed updates of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons which were summarized in Annex I to the report. The report also presents Annex II, “Millennium Development Goals: Mainstreaming Disability”, which presents practical guidance on the inclusion of disability in the processes of the MDGs.

The principal issue addressed in the fifth review and appraisal is the emergence of a “new normative and policy architecture” on the advancement of persons with disabilities within the context of development. This architecture comprises the broad policy framework of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons (for policy formulation, planning and development); the tactical guidance for States of the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunity for Persons with Disabilities; and the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which are legally binding for States parties, and is discussed in the section “International Disability Architecture”.

A second point of importance within the report is the emergence, of regional action plans and programmes on the advancement of persons with disabilities, which reflect needs and priorities of the respective regional actors and their complementary relationship to the international architecture.

A third point addresses the processes of the MDGs and focuses on options suggested in the architecture to ensure that no one is excluded from the processes of global development.

A fourth point within the report discusses the expanded constituencies for the advancement of persons with disabilities. As the median global age is on the rise, disability will have major policy implications because the prevalence of disabilities tends to be higher among older persons. The new constituencies represent important agents in a new and concerted effort as part of a disability-sensitized community to the advancement of persons with disability in the context of development. It is important to note the importance of promoting universal design, the design of products, environments, programmes and services which are usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. Such increased accessibility benefits all members of society, not only persons with disabilities.

The fifth, point, is the need for a single, comprehensive biennial review of progress and obstacles in implementing a global strategy for disability-inclusive development. This unified report on the new disability architecture could facilitate substantive exchange and learning from the findings and recommendations of the CRDP treaty body once established, within the context of development.

Annex I to the Fifth review and appraisal of the World Programme of Action – Updates to the World Programme of Action
Annex I discusses the issue of the updating of the World Programme of Action, as requested by General Assembly resolution 62/127.

The report recommends that the General Assembly endorse a plan to develop a Global Strategy toward Disability-Inclusive Development 2010-2015, through regional consultations and contributions from experts. These strategic guidelines could be developed based on the complementarities and synergies of three disability-specific instruments, namely the World Programme of Action, the Standard Rules and the Convention, and could incorporate updates proposed by Member States. There are existing regional guidelines for disability action in the context of development that could provide a basis for the development of a global strategy.
Annex II to the Fifth review and appraisal of the World Programme of Action – Millennium Development Goals: Mainstreaming Disability

Annex II provides a selection of examples and guidelines for mainstreaming disability in the MDGs and includes possible indicators to include disability in the monitoring of progress in achieving MDGs.

This call for action, and the associated materials, was recently circulated in several different locations including the IDA_CRPD_Forum and the GPDD mailing list.

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Including Everybody: Website on Disability and MDGs Launched

Posted on 26 September 2008. Filed under: Announcements, Children, Cross-Disability, Education, Health, HIV/AIDS, Inclusion, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), News, Opinion, Policy & Legislation | Tags: child mortality, developing countries, Education, education for all, EFA, empowering women, gender equity, global cooperation, HIV/AIDS, hunger, Include Everybody, malaria, maternal health, MDG, Millennium Development Goals, people with disabilities, Poverty, sustainable environment, universal primary education |

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
End poverty and hunger. Put all children in school. Empower women. Stop children from dying. Keep pregnant and birthing mothers healthy. Fight AIDS, malaria, and other disease. Create a sustainable environment. And promote global cooperation. These are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)–an important set of goals agreed upon by key leaders and heads of state from around the world in September 2000. No, they don’t mention people with disabilities at all–and I will come back to this point in a few paragraphs. Or you can ignore me and go straight to the new website on disability and the MDGs. But in theory, the MDGs are meant to help everyone.

Each goal has a set of specific targets to be achieved, most with the deadline set for 2015. For example, the poverty goal includes a target to cut the number of people living on less than $1 a day in half by 2015. And the goal on child mortality includes a target to cut the child mortality rate by two-thirds among children below age 5. Many country governments, multi-lateral development banks, international development organizations, and donors have invested billions of dollars into projects meant to help more countries and regions meet the Millennium Development Goals.

What has the results been? Mixed. Some of the goals, such as the targets for reducing poverty and hunger, or in putting all children in primary school, have been met–and exceeded in many countries particularly in eastern Asia. Progress in southern Asia has helped also. But many countries in sub-Saharan Africa lag far behind in meeting many of the MDGs.

You can read more about the overall progress–or lack of it–at
http://www.undp.org/mdg/basics_ontrack.shtml
. Or if you only want to look up the progress in the country where you live, work, or care about the most, go to
http://www.undp.org/mdg/tracking_countryreports2.shtml
.

People with Disabilities and the MDGs
But what about people with disabilities? Unfortunately, they have been so invisible that most programs and governments don’t even count them. That means it’s hard to find reliable numbers that measure whether people with disabilities are included–or left behind–in the haphazard progress that has been made toward the MDGs. But, we can make some educated guesses.

For example, what limited numbers do exist estimate that possibly as many as 98% of children with disabilities in some developing countries never go to school. Personally, I doubt this number is universally true. For one thing, there is a great deal of variation from country to country in how proactive they are about finding creative ways to include children with disabilities in school. Read Making Schools Inclusive: How Change Can Happen: Save the Children’s Experience (PDF format, 4.14 Mb) for examples of progress.

Then, there is probably some variation depending on the disability. A child with a relatively mild walking-related disability, for example, might have only minor difficulty reaching school if it is not too far. Or a child with undiagnosed and unaccommodated dyslexia might sometimes make it through a few years of school, and even learn a little, before they quit in frustration.

But if that 98% figure is anywhere close to the mark, then it is safe to say that the MDG target on universal primary education has failed disabled children miserably. We do know that they are very disproportionately left behind: the UK Department of International Development (DFID) says that one-third of the 72 million children who are out of school have disabilities, even though people with disabilities are only an estimated 10 percent of the world population in general. And this only covers the education-related target of the MDGs; the new website on disability and the MDGs points out gaps in all the rest.

Disability Inclusion is Everyone’s Business
So what’s the answer to this problem? A thorough response to this question would fill a book. One thing, however, is clear: It will not be resolved by any one government or organization working in isolation. And it certainly will not happen if resource-strapped disability-oriented organizations are left to tackle the problem alone. It will take many governments, agencies, and organizations working together–including those that do not normally specialize in disability issues. In short, everybody who is doing anything to address the MDGs needs to identify better ways to include people with disabilities in the work they’re already doing.

This begins by increasing everyone’s awareness of the complex relationship between disability and the MDGs. By “everyone” I mean both disability advocates (so they can help advocate the issue) and also mainstream international development professionals (so they can find ways to ensure their programs are not inadvertently leaving disabled people behind). Either way, you can start learning at the new website on disability and the Millennium Development Goals, Include Everybody, at:

http://www.includeeverybody.org/

What Do I Think of “Include Everybody”?
When you consider that this website is brand new, I think it makes an excellent start at covering the issues. In the long run, as with any new endeavor, I see room for them to expand. For example, their page on achieving universal primary school education or the page on promoting gender equality and empowering women could usefully link to publications such as Education for All: a gender and disability perspective (PDF format, 151 Kb). Or their page on combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases could link to the on-line global survey on disability and HIV/AIDS.

They also could consider eventually developing a one to two page, attractive looking, factsheet on disability and the MDGs that advocates could print out and disseminate when educating others about the topic. They also could consider developing a similarly attractive, one-page factsheet for each of the MDGs individually. The latter could be useful, for example, for passing along to a specialist who only wants to read the information on child mortality without also having to wade through a lot of detail on environmental sustainability. Or vice versa.

But, for now, this web site is a good place to start learning.

http://www.includeeverybody.org/links.php

The Include Everybody website has been publicized in several different locations by now, including the GPDD mailing list, the Intl-Dev mailing list, Joan Durocher’s mailing list, and others.

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We Can Do Copyright
This blog post is copyrighted to We Can Do (wecando.wordpress.com). Currently, only two web sites have on-going permission to syndicate (re-post) We Can Do blog posts in full: BlogAfrica.com and RatifyNow.org. Other sites may be plagiarizing this post without permission.

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OPINION: The Farmer, the Spoon, and the Plow

Posted on 29 March 2008. Filed under: Human Rights, Opinion | Tags: Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, disability and development, disability rights, disabled people, Human Rights, international development, people with disabilities, RatifyNow, UN CRPD |

The Farmer, the Spoon, and the Plow: Why the International Disability Rights Treaty (CRPD) is Worth Celebrating

This allegorical tale is meant to highlight why the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is well worth celebrating—and why our work isn’t done just because it’s about to enter into force.

Historical Note: The CRPD is an international treaty intended to protect a wide range of human rights for people with disabilities, including the right to live in the community (not an institution), to have access to public services, to be free of discrimination, and more. It does not create new rights. Rather, it is meant to ensure that people with disabilities are able to access the same rights that other people in their country already enjoy. This tale was written a month before the CRPD first entered into force on May 3, 2008, with 20 ratifying countries. Today, in October 2009, more than 70 countries have ratified the CRPD and more than 140 countries have signed it. The full text of the CRPD, and a full list of countries signing or ratifying the CRPD, is available at
http://www.un.org/disabilities
. A country is not fully obligated to obey the treaty until after it not only signs but also ratifies the CRPD.

Before the CRPD Was Created
Once upon a time, there were 650 million farmers who tended to thousands of fields in 200 nations. Some of the fields were more fertile than other fields. Some received more rain and sun than others. Some fields were filled with rocks and other obstacles that made it very hard for farmers to plant and harvest food. In order to do any plowing, the farmers first had to remove the stones. All the fields were very large: it could easily take a farmer many years to finish plowing or harvesting even the smallest field. But even in size, the fields varied greatly.

It was not only the fields that were so dramatically different from each other. Each farmer also had a different set of tools. Some farmers had only tiny teaspoons, some of which were broken and not even working properly. Some farmers had table spoons or even large stirring spoons. A few farmers had been taught how to make shovels and were able to use those.

Farmers with shovels were usually able to plow their fields more quickly than farmers with teaspoons. But sometimes a farmer with a shovel had to clear away so many stones from her field that she would finish far less plowing than a farmer with only a teaspoon but an easier field.

But all the farmers were frustrated. No matter how easy their field was to plow, or how fertile it was, or how much dirt their spoons could hold, all their fields were simply too large to complete with the tools they had. Some farmers despaired of their task, gave up completely, and starved. Some farmers continued to work in grim determination and were able to grow a little food for their trouble. But it was never enough—not because they were lazy or greedy but simply because their tools weren’t powerful enough.

Creating the CRPD; Signing it; Ratifying it
Some of the farmers decided to do something about their deplorable living conditions. These farmers worked together to build a set of plows and agreed to make all the plows available to any farmer who needed them. They named their set of plows the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Sometimes they referred to them more informally as the international disability rights treaty. Or they refered to them as the CRPD for short.

Some of the farmers lived in governments that usually did little to invest in the needs of their farmers. Consequently, these governments choose not to allow their farmers to use the new plows at all. Some of the farmers who had been forbidden to use the plows banded together into various national and international organizations, such as RatifyNow, to pressure their governments to deliver the plows to them. In some cases, the farmers have had success and can now use the CRPD. In other cases, the farmers are still fighting but are experiencing progress.

Some governments made promises to buy these new plows for their farmers. But then they locked the plows into a shed and never got around to allowing the farmers to actually use them. In some cases, farmers in these countries decided the plows were useless for them. After all, their government had bought the plows, but the plows accomplished nothing for them.

In other cases, the farmers realized that the plows themselves were not flawed–the real problem was in the fact that the plows were not being used. They, too, organized themselves to put pressure on their governments to make better use of the plows. After many years of hard work, they convinced their governments to unlock the plows so they could be used.

Now We Have the CRPD, Our Work is Done. Or is it?
Some farmers were allowed to use the plows but did not understand why they would want to. “Look, we already have tools for plowing our fields,” they said. “And what good have they done for us? They still take forever to use. Why would a plow be any better?” They ignored the plows and continued using the tools they knew. They continued to have all the same troubles they had before the plows were built.

Other farmers, at first, were thrilled to have the plows. They allowed the plow to sit in their fields and immediately stopped working. “The plow will take care of all our problems now,” they said. “After, that’s what it’s meant to do, isn’t it? It will fight our poverty and starvation for us. When our governments try to oppress us with harmful laws and regulations, it will fight back for us. When schools deny our children the right to enter the classroom, or when clinics refuse to provide us with health services, then the plows will tell them to stop discriminating against us. The schools and clinics will immediately obey the plows and give us our rights. It’s as simple as that.”

After a few years of allowing their plows to sit untended in their fields, these farmers realized that their fields were still unplowed. The farmers, for their part, were still poor and hungry, their children were still uneducated, and their families were still sick.

They became angry and blamed the plows for being faulty. They sneered at the plows and at the people who had built them. “These plows sure look pretty, but what good are they?” These farmers said. “What do they actually accomplish? If these plows are so wonderful then why are we still poor, hungry, uneducated, and sick?” They abandoned the plows, and so the plows did nothing for them.

Why Do We Need to Learn About the CRPD?
Another group of farmers started using the plows, but they didn’t read the instruction manual that came with them. They did the best they could without the instruction manual. Sometimes they found that they did accomplish more with the plows than they ever had with their spoons and shovels. But still, they were severely disappointed. The plows were not nearly as productive for them as they had initially hoped. They continued using the plows because it was what they had, but they became angry that the plows accomplished so little for them.

Fully Implementing the CRPD
Yet another group of farmers were careful to read the instruction manual thoroughly. They used every feature the plows had in every situation for which these features were helpful.

Farming still did not become magically easy for any of the farmers. They still had to work very hard. Some farmers still had far larger fields than other farmers, and thus took longer to finish their work. Some farmers had to work very slowly because they had to spend so much time clearing away stones before they could use their plows at all. These farmers, too, took longer than other farmers to finish their work.

But all the farmers found that their plows were a vast improvement over the tools they had used before. They were thrilled with the plows and decided to celebrate them.

The Moral of the Tale
So what’s the moral of this allegorical tale?

First, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is potentially a very powerful tool that could accomplish a great deal for people with disabilities around the world. That’s a good thing because the world’s 650 million disabled people are far more likely to live in poverty, or be targeted for violence, or be left behind during natural disasters and wars. The CRPD, if properly understood and properly used, could help with all of these challenges.

But, second, it is only a tool and nothing more. It’s not a magic wand or an instant cure for all that ails. A plow cannot help a farmer if the farmer has no access to it; similarly, the CRPD will be of limited help to people with disabilities if not enough countries ratify it.

A plow continues to be useless if it is locked up in a shed. Similarly, even a ratified human rights treaty is useless if governments fail to take responsibility for implementing it. Governments must not merely ratify the CRPD but also create and pass laws that are consistent with the CRPD. Governments must abolish laws that are inconsistent with its intent and spirit. And governments must enforce its laws by taking action when they are violated.

The Importance of Grassroots Action
But it is not only governments that must take responsibility for the success of the CRPD. Ordinary citizens, with or without disabilities, must take responsibility for reading the instruction manual—in other words, educating themselves about the CRPD. Then they must learn how to use the CRPD to its maximum potential.

For example, if they realize that disabled people in their country are being denied the chance to go to school, they can go to their government and to the schools and teachers themselves to argue, “The CRPD requires that disabled people have the right to an education. This country has ratified the CRPD. Therefore, if disabled people still face barriers to obtaining an education, then the government and schools are failing in their legal obligations.” This argument could help persuade governments to create better laws, persuade schools to create better policies, and teachers to reconsider their teaching practices.

But organizations can only use these arguments if they first understand that the CRPD addresses the right to an education (see article 24 in the CRPD).

Removing Stones From the Field
Furthermore, people must be prepared to identify and remove obstacles that make it harder to fully implement the CRPD. In other words, they still need to find and remove the stones from their field. The CRPD cannot do this for them.

For example, attitudes and beliefs about disabled people are often a barrier to the full achievement of human rights even after good-quality laws might be put in place. If too many people mistakenly believe that people with disabilities cannot be productive, then few employers will give jobs to disabled people no matter what the law says. This is an obstacle that must be removed before the CRPD can be fully effective.

Article 8 of the CRPD, in fact, clearly acknowledges the importance of attitudes as a potential barrier to the success of the CRPD. This article calls upon ratifying governments to raise awareness in general society about the rights of persons with disabilities.

But the best teachers about the true capability of people with disabilities are people with disabilities themselves. The government can only support the work of educating the public and provide the resources to help make it happen. The disability community still needs to take the lead.

Achieving Human Rights
Just like farmers could still tend to their fields without a plow, disability advocates could still advocate for their rights without the CRPD. But in both cases, their work will be much harder without the proper tools.

Farmers who fail to use their plows will fail to accomplish anything with them. And farmers who fail to remove the stones from their fields will not get very far either. Similarly, disability advocates will not benefit from the CRPD if they do not learn how to use it, or if they neglect to remove the barriers that are blocking the CRPD from success.

But once they do these things, they will start to unleash the true power of the CRPD. It will still take many long years of hard work to realize the full potential of the CRPD. But during these years of sweat and tears, disability advocates can potentially accomplish far more with the CRPD than they could without it.

That’s why it’s worth celebrating the CRPD.

This blog post was written as a contribution for the RatifyNow CRPD Blog Swarm 2008, which was organized to help celebrate and promote the CRPD. A blog swarm is an event in which multiple bloggers or writers agree to write about the same topic at about the same time—in this case, about the CRPD. Please follow the link to read the other entries in the blog swarm.

http://ratifynow.org/2008/03/29/ratifynow-crpd-blog-swarm-2008/

You can also educate yourself about the CRPD by reading the RatifyNow FAQ.

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We Can Do Retrospective: The First 100 Posts (and Then Some)

Posted on 22 December 2007. Filed under: Academic Papers and Research, Announcements, Arts, autism, Blind, Call for Papers, Case Studies, Children, Cognitive Impairments, Commonwealth Nations, Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), Cross-Disability, Deaf, Democratic Participation, Disability Studies, Disaster Planning & Mitigation, East Asia and Central Asia, East Asia Pacific Region, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Education, Education and Training Opportunities, Employment, Events and Conferences, Families, Fellowships & Scholarships, Funding, Guest Blogger, Health, HIV/AIDS, Housing, Human Rights, Immigration, Inclusion, Interpreting, Introduction to "We Can Do", Jobs & Internships, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, Mobility Impariments, Multiple Disabilities, News, Opinion, Opportunities, Policy & Legislation, Poverty, Psychiatric Disabilities, Rehabilitation, Remittances, Reports, Resources, South Asian Region, Sub-Saharan Africa Region, technology, Violence, Volunteer Opportunities, Women | Tags: , Academic Papers and Research, blind children, Call for Papers, case study, child-friendly CRPD, computers for blind people, conferences, CRPD, disabilities, disability, disability and development, disability and international development, disability rights, disabled, disabled people, Disabled People International, Dolphin Pen, events, Funding, funding sources, Handicap International, Human Rights, human rights resources, Inclusion, India, information, international convention on the rights of persons with, International Day of Disabled Persons, international development, journals, mainstreaming disability, missed opportunities, News, opinion pieces, papers, parliamentarians, people with disabilities, poverty reduction strategies, practical resources, research, resource book, Resources, retrospective, screen magnifier, screen reader, Sightsaver's dolphin pen, training opportunities, UN Enable, United Nations, universal design, visitability, Voluntary Services Overseas, We Can Do, Zimbabwe |

Skip introduction, go straight to the Table of Contents

If you’re new to We Can Do, what interesting information, news, or resources might you have overlooked from the past few months? Although some older items may no longer be interesting, others may still be relevant and helpful a year or three from now. This post can help guide you through the first 100-plus posts at this blog. You can click from the table of contents below to any section of this page that interests you–and then another click on “table of contents” can take you back to the contents, or “top of this page” takes you back to this introduction.

Top of this page

Table of Contents

About We Can Do
The five most popular We Can Do posts
The five most under-rated We Can Do posts
Finding Practical Resources and Case Studies, or Helpful Organizations
Finding sources of information, research, papers, or statistics
Funding sources: leads on where to find funding support
Academic papers related to disabled people in developing countries
News related to disabled people in developing countries
Opinion pieces
Call for papers for conferences and journals
International Conference and Event Announcements
Job, internship, and volunteer opportunities
Education and training opportunities
Missed opportunities for events, jobs, etc.
What’s next for We Can Do?

Table of Contents; Top of this page

About We Can Do

To learn more about the purpose of We Can Do, see About We Can Do. For more on its guiding philosophy, go to Why We Can Do.

Thinking about submitting your own written materials, job posts, conference announcements, or resources to We Can Do? Check the Wish list for written materials and resources.

Want to receive an alert in email when a new post goes up at We Can Do? You can Subscribe to We Can Do for free.

I changed the organization and appearance of We Can Do in early October to its present format.

Table of Contents; Top of this page

The Five Most Popular We Can Do posts

The five listed here are the ones that have attracted the most “page views” since We Can Do began in late July. You may notice that not all of these are featured in the 10 “most popular posts” listed in the right-hand navigation bar. That’s because the navigation bar only lists posts that have received a lot of traffic very recently (I think within the past few days; its done automatically by wordpress so I’m not sure how it works). But here I’m listing the five that have the highest TOTAL page views.

An announcement about the International Day of Disabled Persons, held on December 3, 2007, has received more than 600 hits.
More than 500 We Can Do readers were especially anxious to learn more about some limited available funding for conference participation from developing nations.
More than 400 readers wanted to learn from a Case study on early intervention for blind children.
The international Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) in plain language has attracted more than 400 readers. This version of the CRPD was written for people who have trouble understanding the legal language of the original, or who want a tool to help them translate the CRPD into another language.
More than 400 people have learned more About We Can Do.

Table of Contents; Top of this page

The Five Most Under-Rated We Can Do posts

Are these posts really under-rated? You’ll have to read them and decide for yourself. But in choosing these five, I used two criteria: 1. These are posts that have received fewer than 100 visitors–sometimes far fewer. 2. These are posts that I think could be helpful or interesting to readers and maybe deserve more attention than they have gotten. These are in no particular order:

See Finding development organizations and resources for a link that can help you find major international development organizations and funders. Some of these organizations already work on disability issues and may be interested in building new partnerships with new DPOs, development organizations, and other NGOs.
Equipment that enables blind people in industrialized countries to read computer screens can be expensive. But new technology can help bring screen readers and magnifiers to blind people in developing countries. The Sightsaver’s Dolphin Pen is cheaper, which means it is easier to afford in countries where the average income may be only a few hundred dollars per person per year.
Looking for statistics to back up your arguments, or to add to your literature review for your dissertation? You can consult Numbers Don’t Feed People–Or Do They?” for a few leads.
Want to help teach disabled people in your country about the international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)? Handicap International has developd a teaching kit on the CRPD with suggested teaching points, power point programs, Word files and PDF files.
Teachers, parents, and other advocates for children can use the Child-friendly version of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to teach both disabled and non-disabled children about disability rights.

Table of Contents; Top of this page

Finding Practical Resources and Case Studies or Helpful Organizations

Finding organizations; Resources for inclusive development; Human rights resources; Case studies; Other helpful resources

Finding organizations
Mainstream international development agencies sometimes say that they don’t know how to find people with disabilities, or their representative organizations, in the developing countries where they work. Reviewing the July post entitled Finding Local Disability Organizations may help point you in the right direction. Also see Disability Organizations in Afghanistan, Asia, Kenya, Uganda.

Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs) sometimes aren’t sure where to find mainstream development organizations and resources that might be willing to collaborate with them.

There is an international network of organizations for families of people with Rubinstein Taybi Syndrome.

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Resources for Inclusive Development
Both disability advocates and mainstream development organizations want to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind when countries and organizations fight poverty or improve public health, education, water, and other services. But it can be a challenge to figure out how to make projects and government policies more inclusive. The following resources can help:

Making Poverty Reduction Strategies Inclusive: for disability advocates and other individuals or organizations that want to help national government policies become more inclusive of disabled people when they fight poverty. This handbook can be downloaded for free.
Handbook on Mainstreaming Disability, for mainstream international development organizations written by Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO). Download for free.
An On-line book on Universal Design and Visitability can be downloaded for free.

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Resources on the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
By now, you may be aware that a global movement is taking place to ratify the international disability rights treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Many relevant resources are now being produced in relation to the CRPD, some of which have been posted or featured here at We Can Do:

Read the CRPD “translated” into plain English.

UNICEF has developed a child-friendly version of the CRPD to help children understand disability rights

Disabled People International offers two toolkits on ratifying and implementing the CRPD for disability advocates who want to help ensure that all disabled people have their human rights recognized.

A handbook on disability rights targeted at parliamentarians can help parliamentarians, people who work in close contact with government agencies, and disability advocates in general, better understand the CRPD.

The United Nations’ new web site, UN Enable, is one of the best, and most official, places to find information on the CRPD.

Handicap International has produced its own Teaching Kit on the CRPD.

The International Disability Equality Agency (IDEA) has issued Equalize It! A Manifesto for Disability Equality in Development Cooperation that expresses their position on how to ensure disability equality in the international development field.

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Case Studies
Reviewing case studies of projects implemented elsewhere can be a valuable source of ideas that could help you figure out how to run or implement your own projects. I would love to post many more best-practice and failed-practice case studies than I have available right now. If you think you have something worth sharing, please check my Wish List of Written Materials and Resource and contact me at ashettle [at] patriot.net.

But for now, here are two case studies:

A Case Study about an Early intervention program for blind children in Russia
a collection of short case summaries of projects for deaf children in Burkino Faso, Zimbabwe, Somaliland, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and India

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Other Helpful Resources

A set of Recommendations on how to empower people with intellectual disabilities in the Asian and Pacific region was developed at a conference held in the region in October 2007.
A dictionary for Sri Lankan Sign Language has been published.
A new device functions as a screen reader or magnifier for blind people in developing countries: this Sightsavers’ Dolphin Pen is cheaper than the standard screen readers used in industrialized countries. That helps bring it within reach of a wider number of blind people even in countries where the average income is very low.

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Finding Useful Sources of Information and Research

Finding academic research, papers, resources, or statistics
Looking for academic research and academic papers; resources that can be used by people working in the field; or sources of statistics? Some of the following posts may be helpful:

Information on people with disabilities
Interested in learning about the living conditions of people with disabilities in specific nations, or in specific thematic areas? Some of the following may be of interest:

Report on Disabled People in Zimbabwe
World Bank Report on Disabled people in India
A report on research capacity on mental health in low- and middle-income countries was published by the Global Forum for Health Research on Mental Health Day in October 2007.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) published a report on employment and people with disabilities, which calls for more active and sustained efforts to increase the employment of people with disabilities in part to help meet the Millennium Development Goals.
An early post reviews information on deaf children with additional disabilities and resources available for them in developing countries.

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Funding Sources

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) may have some funding for DPOs, NGOs, or other entities to be used for disability inclusion.
The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) has come out with a resource that could help women’s organizations find funding.
The Worldwide Initiative for Grantmaker Support (WINGS) Global Fund for Community Foundations makes grants of up to $50,000 USD to emerging and developing community foundations or support organizations in developing countries. Note that these funds are NOT meant for individual non-government organizations (NGOs) but for small FOUNDATIONS or organizations meant to SUPPORT NGOs.
The United Nations Democracy Fund holds an annual competition for funding applications for projects to promote better democratic participation. The 2007 deadline is December 18. Missed it? Review their information carefully and consider preparing early for their next funding round.
Looking for funding to attend an international or local conference? three organizations have some limited funds available for conference participation from developing countries; two of these are focused on Latin America, but the first one listed (the Ford Foundation) covers other regions as well.
The Inter-American
Foundations Grassroots Development Fellowship Program offers research fellowships to doctorate (PhD) students who want to study grassroots movements among poor people in Latin America. The application deadline is January 22, 2008.
Funding is available for South Asian projects on HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination; the application deadline is January 31, 2008.

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Academic Papers

We Can Do has published, or re-published, academic papers, or linked to same, on a range of subjects, including:

Violence against blind and visually impaired girls in school in Malawi by Abigail Suka
Changing Face of Disability Movement: from Charity to Empowerment by Kishor Bhanushali
Impact of the South Asian Earthquake on Disabled People in the State of Jammu and Kashmir by Dr. Parvinder Singh
Equalizing Educational Opportunity for the Nigerian-Ghanaian Blind Girl Child by Florence Banku Obi.
Violence Against Women with Disabilities in South Africa by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in South Africa.

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News

September 2007; October 2007; November 2007; Early December 2007

September 2007
At one point in September, the international disability community prematurely thought we might be On the Verge of Making History by ratifying the disability rights community.

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October 2007

In October, We Can Do reported that Gabon and India ratified, and Cambodia signed, the International CRPD (Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities).
The World Health Organization (WHO) has initiated a project improving access to services for people with psycho-social (psychiatric) disabilities.
An activist, Mussa Chiwaula, has been lobbying the Malawi government for disability rights.
Read a report on the first known African deaf HIV/AIDS workshop.

A polio immunization drive was launched in Sudan.

Mental Disabilities Rights International (MDRI) reports severe abuse and human rights violations of people with mental disabilities in Argentina.
A Report was issued on a disability forum held in Pakistan.

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November 2007

Mugiho Takeshita at the UNDP’s Crisis Prevention and Recovery was seeking information on implementing the CRPD in relation to crisis prevention and recovery for disabilities caused by violence and natural disaster.
A Report was issued from the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters Conference that was held in Spain in July 2007.
Mental Disabilities Rights International (MDRI) reports on human rights abuses of disabled children and adults in Serbia.
The Commonwealth Disabled People’s Conference issued a Memorandum calling for Commonwealth countries to support the CRPD.
A Brazilian journalist and disability advocate received the International Service Human Rights Award for her defense of the human rights of people with disabilities.

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Early December 2007

The International Day of Disabled Persons was held on December 3, 2007.
A web site on Disability Awareness Week in India was launched.
Disability advocates have launched a global campaign to ratify the international disability rights treaty.
The United Nations Secretary General made a statement in support of employing disabled people.
People in India celebrated the International Day of Disabled Persons.
Rosangela Berman Bieler made a statement on receiving the International Services Human Rights Award.
Read a summary of a round table discussion on disability rights in Bangladesh, which held in December 2007.
Bangladesh, Spain, Namibia, and Nicaragua ratify the international disability rights treaty (CRPD).
El Salvador, Mexico ratify the CRPD.

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Opinion Pieces

So far, the opinion pieces here are all by me. But I would like for We Can Do to be host to an active exchange of ideas and differing perspectives. If you have a strong opinion about something, please consider submitting it. Yes, that includes opinions that disagree with mine! Consult the Wish list for written materials and resources for ideas of the kinds of topics I’m trying to cover at We Can Do.

Meanwhile, here are a few of my own opinion pieces:

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Call for Papers (for Conferences, Journals, Other)

You might be just now starting your academic career as an undergraduate or graduate student. Or perhaps you have been doing quantitative or qualitative research, or writing policy analysis, or case studies, or social analysis, for years. Either way, if you’re looking for opportunities to present, publish, or otherwise disseminate your papers or run a workshop, then check out these upcoming or ongoing opportunities:

A Call for proposals for an international forum on women’s rights and development is open until January 28, 2008. The conference itself will be in November 2008.
A Call for papers for the International Conference on Social Science Research Methodologies is open until February 2008. The conference itself will be in September 2008.
Authors are needed to Write book chapters for a book to be entitled, “Post-Conflict Rehabilitation: Creating a Trauma Membrane for Individuals and Communities and Restructuring Lives after Trauma”.
If you have ever written a paper about the World Bank for a class or for a dissertation during your post-secondary education, then you can share your university papers on the World Bank.

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International Conferences and Events

Looking for a conference to attend? Here are a few upcoming events:
January 2008; February 2008; March 2008; April 2008; May 2008; August 2008; September 2008; November 2008

January 2008
The South Asian Conference on Autism is being held in New Delhi, India in January 2008.

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February 2008

The Disabilities Initiatives in Development Seminar, also in Bangladesh also in February 2008.

One for all: Persons with Disabilities Initiative in Development, again in Bangladesh in February 2008.

The International Centre for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, UK is holding a conference on sign language research in the UK in February 2008.

A conference on the deaf community, sign languages, social issues, civil rights, and creativity will be held on the campus of Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA.

The Techshare India 2008 Conference on accessibility will be held in New Delhi, India, in February 2008.

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March 2008
The 8th annual meeting of the Gulf Disability Society will meet in United Arab Emirates in March 2008.

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April 2008

The Pacific Rim Conference on Disabilities will meet in the Hawaii islands, USA, in April 2008.
The 8th Symposium of the Arab Federation of the Organs of the Deaf “Improving Education and Rehabilitation of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing People” will be held in Saudi Arabia in April 2008.
The Unite for Sight International Health Confernece will be held at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA in April 2008.

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May 2008

The Conference on the International Convention on the Rights of Persons on Disabilities will be held in Ethiopia in May 2008.
The i-CREATE International Conference on Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology will be held in Thailand in May 2008.

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August 2008

The 21st World Congress of Rehabilitation International will meet in Quebec in August 2008.
The International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication conference will be held in Montreal, Canada, in August 2008.

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September 2008

The International Conference on Social Science Research Methodologies will meet in South Africa in September 2008. A Call for Paper/Presentation Abstracts is open until February 2008.

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November 2008
The Association on Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)’s International Forum on Women’s Rights and Development will be held in Cape Town, South Africa in November 2008. A call for proposals is open until January 28, 2008.

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Jobs, Internships, Volunteer Opportunities

We Can Do will probably never be a comprehensive job-board. Serious job, internship, or volunteer placement hunters will want to explore other means of finding opportunities. For example, jobs, internships, and volunteer opportunities in the international field generally, or in the disability field generally, can sometimes be found at www.idealist.org. But I do occasionally happen to come across a job announcement. Here are a few that may still be open to applications:

Three job posts are available in Luanda, Angola; the deadline for these is December 31, 2007.
On-line translators for a corporate social responsibility initiative called “Disability Focus”. Contact organization to inquire regarding deadline.
The United Nations is seeking a Senior Social Affairs Officer, P-5. The application deadline is January 14, 2008.

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Education and Training Opportunities

Leadership training for women with disabilities in South Asia will be available in February 2008.
Mobility International USA is recruiting men and women with disabilities from Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru for the International Leadership Employment and Disability (I-LEAD) program for 21 days in March 2008 in Eugene, Oregon, USA.
Study human rights at Central European University, for grassroots activists for human rights involved with a local non-government organization (NGO), or for lawyers with an interest in human rights.

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Missed Opportunities

Missed call for papers; Missed training opportunities; Missed job, internship, and volunteer opportunities; Missed events and conferences

Some of the material I post at We Can Do is time-sensitive material. That means the conferences announced here have come and gone; job posts have been filled; and deadlines are over. So, if it’s too late for you to do anything about any of the following announcements, then why bother listing them? First, some conference organizers issue compilations of papers and presentations or other interesting materials after their event is over. If a topic interests you, it may be worth communicating with event organizers to see if any follow-up publications are available. Second, organizations that offer one conference, job opportunity, call for papers, etc., may offer something similar in the future. Many conferences, for example, meet every one, two, three, or four years. Monitoring, joining, or communicating with organizations of interest to you could help ensure that you learn about the next opportunity in time to plan for it.

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Missed Call for Papers
The German Journal for Disability and Development called for papers on art and disabilities to be submitted by the end of November 2007.

Also browse through the listing of upcoming conferences and missed conferences.

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Missed Training Opportunities

In October 2007, the International Labour Organisation had a training course for professionals from developing countries.

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Missed Jobs, Internships, and Volunteer Opportunities
Remember that it is too late to apply for these specific opportunities. These are listed here in case you want to check out the sponsoring organizations for future opportunities like these:

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Missed Event and Conference Opportunities

The Commonwealth disabled peoples conference in Uganda was held in November 2007. Participants at that conference issued a memorandum asking commonwealth countries to support the international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The International Conference on Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Emergency Situations was held in Germany in November 2007.
A conference was held by the Community Based Rehabilitation African Network on Inclusive Policy in South Africa in November 2007.
An international conference on intellectual disabilities and mental retardation was held in Thailand in November 2007.
The 7th International Seminar on Housing the Poor was held in Thailand in November 2007.
An on-line forum on the sexual and reproductive health of people with disabilities was held via e-mail in November.
A national conference on the CRPD was held in India in early December 2007.
An on-line forum on successful family planning programs held in December 2007; people may also wish to full out a survey on this topic.
A photo competition on decent work and people with disabilities was held by the International Labour Organization, ending in November 2007.

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What’s Next for We Can Do?

I am not yet satisfied with We Can Do. I still see many gaps that I want to repair. I want to find, and post, more materials of a pragmatic nature. By which I mean, material that people in the field can put to immediate use in improving the lives of disabled people in developing countries. If you think you can help me locate helpful materials, please review my Wish list for written materials and resources and contact me.

I also want to reach more development professionals at mainstream development organizations and more employees and volunteers at international disability organizations. And I want to reach more small DPOs and individual advocates in more developing countries. The knowledge shared at We Can Do cannot help until it is brought to people with disabilities living in poverty in developing countries. That “final mile” can only be bridged by readers like YOU.

If you want to help, I hope you will consider telling your colleagues and contacts about We Can Do. If you run a web site or a blog, please consider linking to We Can Do at http://wecando.wordpress.com. If you have the skills, the time, and the commitment to launch a We Can Do mirror site translation into some other language, please talk to me (leave a comment or email me at ashettle [at] patriot.net). And please do feel free to print out the more helpful We Can Do posts to share with people you know in developing countries who do not have easy access to the Internet.

For those of you who like numbers: We Can Do had 285 page views in July; 851 in August; 1305 in September; 2936 in October; 4862 in November; and more than 5100 in the first three weeks of December. And who is responsible for making these numbers happen? Why—you, of course! So, thank you for visiting We Can Do.

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Equalize It! A Manifesto for Disability Equality in Development Cooperation

Posted on 15 December 2007. Filed under: Opinion, Human Rights, Guest Blogger, Inclusion | Tags: disability, international development, disabled, disabilities, disability and development, disabled people, people with disabilities, disability and international development, manifesto, disability equality, development cooperation, equalize it!, manifesto for disability equality |

From the International Disability Equality Agency (IDEA):

Equalise It ! A Manifesto for Disability Equality in Development Cooperation

This manifesto has been written to identify the issues for the disability movement, clarify any confusion there may be for disability and development professionals and set out a programme for change in order to create real equality for disabled people and our democratic, representative organisations (DPOs) in the development process. The adoption of the UN Convention on the rights of People with Disabilities by a growing number of countries makes the implementation of the principles in this manifesto a matter of urgency.

Disability, Poverty and Development Charities.

As disabled people….
Throughout the world we face discrimination.
Throughout the world we are socially excluded.
Throughout the world we cannot get equal access or any access at all to education, employment or decent health care.
Throughout the world we are ignored in development programmes
And so…

Throughout the world we, disabled people, remain the poorest of the poor!

The fact of this poverty has been used by global development organisations and charities to raise millions of dollars both from the public and from development agencies. However, only a small proportion of this money ever filters down to us or our organisations, DPOs. Even a smaller proportion ever succeeds in effecting sustained improvement in our lives.

At the same time we often have little or no control over what is being done ‘to us’ ‘for us’ or ‘on our behalf.’ There tends, therefore, to be little agreement between what many non-disabled professionals and charities think disabled people need and what we actually want. As a consequence, development projects can leave behind little but disappointment. Because of this the big development organisations and disability charities are frequently seen by disabled people as part of the problem, not part of the solution. Nonetheless, disabled people in the South and Southern DPOs have had little choice but to continue working with them and to smile while doing it. The disability businesses, charities and generalist development organisations have access to the money and with that comes power and control.

These organisations retain control because they are corporate organisations alive to a new funding environment which is demanding that boxes are ticked for such things as ‘human rights’, ‘inclusion’ and ‘listening to the voice of disabled people.’ They have all ticked the boxes, adopted the appropriate language and changed their public image. This is part of their corporate funding strategy. However, the reality is that their operations have not changed very much at all. They continue to be managed by non-disabled people and employ few, if any disabled people.

This reality on the ground is that for us, especially in the South, non-disabled professionals from the North continue to come and to go. Projects come and projects go. Through this never-ending process the disability organisations and charities go from strength to strength, while our DPOs continue to live from hand to mouth.

This manifesto sets out how to begin to overturn this situation and the unequal power relations which feed it.

“Nothing About Us Without Us”

“Nothing About Us Without Us” was the slogan adopted by Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI) at its founding in 1981. DPI was established after Rehabilitation International (RI), then the world’s leading disability charity, refused to permit adequate representation by disabled people. This slogan has been particularly effective in capturing a key idea of our struggle for human rights – self determination is essential for achieving true equality.

This was clearly acknowledged in the 1993 UN Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities. Rule 18 says, “States should recognise the rights of persons with disabilities to represent persons with disabilities at national, regional and local levels. States should also recognise the advisory role of organisations of persons with disabilities in decision-making on disability matters”.

“Nothing About Us Without Us” is also in line with the more general human rights approach to development cooperation. For example the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) holds that “The human rights approach to development means empowering people to take their own decisions, rather than being the passive objects of choices made on their behalf.’

The ideas of self-determination and human rights developed and fought for by us in our international disability movement and encapsulated in “Nothing About Us Without Us” are also at the very heart of the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Disability – a Human Rights Issue

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognises that ‘disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.’

http://www.un.org/disabilities

There are eight guiding principles that underlie the Convention and each one of its specific articles:
1. Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of person
2. Non-discrimination
3. Full and effective participation and inclusion in society
4. Respect for difference and acceptance of disabled people as part of human diversity and humanity
5. Equality of opportunity
6. Accessibility
7. Equality between men and women
8. Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities.

In particular the Convention emphasises the importance of self-representation through DPOs and commits State Parties to working “in partnership with relevant international and regional organizations and civil society, in particular organizations of persons with disabilities” (Article 32).

The Office of the United Nation High Commissioner for Human Rights

Four core values of human rights law that are of particular importance in the context of disability.

the dignity of each individual, who is deemed to be of inestimable value because of his/her inherent self-worth, and not because s/he is economically or otherwise “useful”;
the concept of autonomy or self-determination, which is based on the presumption of a capacity for self-directed action and behaviour, and requires that the person be placed at the centre of all decisions affecting him/her;
the inherent equality of all regardless of difference;
and the ethic of solidarity, which requires society to sustain the freedom of the person with appropriate social supports.

http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/disability/intro.htm#human

As participation is a legal right which we can claim, it is the duty of states and society to ensure that right. Our participation and inclusion must not only be in the systems, structures and services of society, but in the policy-making process as well.

As can be seen, the UN Convention calls for disabled people and our organisations to be in the driving seat. However, this will not happen unless there is a fundamental change in the unequal, neo-colonial relationship which currently exists between disabled people and the large corporate charities, government agencies and international development institutions.

It seems clear that at this phase of our struggle for equality and human rights “Nothing About Us Without Us” is no longer enough. As disabled people we and our organisations need not only to be included, we need to assume the leading role.

Professionals On Tap, Not On Top

Some time ago, David Werner, one of the founders of the Projimo Project in Mexico, wrote:

“Women in most countries are now demanding their right to leadership in the institutions that represent their concerns. It is high time for disabled people everywhere to make similar demands. It is time for planners and administrators to provide the necessary opportunity, encouragement and appropriate skills training.

“And, most urgently of all, it is time for non-disabled professionals to recognise the right of disabled persons to self control, and therefore to gracefully step to one side, into a role where they, as professionals, are no longer on top but rather on tap – as allies.“

This was an attempt to understand the real relationship between disabled people and non-disabled professionals and to alter it. Redefining the relationship is an essential step to achieving a human rights based, empowering and emancipatory approach to disability and development. Without it we will remain no more than the passive raw material for international and national NGOs.

It doesn’t have to be this way. As with other social movements such as black power in the USA, women’s equality or the anti-imperialist struggles, as disabled people we must assume real leadership in our own liberation. We must fight to realise the promise of the UN Convention. And, those non-disabled professionals and organisations who want to help, need to move over and accept a new, more appropriate and equitable relationship. They need to be on tap, not on top. They need to become our genuine allies.

A Check List for Allies

To become genuine allies in the liberation of disabled people funders, development agencies, disability organisations, INGOs and other intermediaries must take steps to transform themselves and how they operate. Among other things, they need to:

Ensure that the need for programmes and policies are identified by disabled people and that we are not included simply to legitimise funding applications.
Ensure that disabled people are involved in all areas of the programme, not just as recipients or beneficiaries, and preferably through our own democratically run organisations (DPOs).
Ensure programmes are committed at every stage to full human rights and equality of opportunity.
Ensure that resources are transferred to DPOs in order to build capacity and sustainability.
Empower and resource disabled people to represent ourselves through our own organisations.
Champion disabled leadership both inside and outside your organisation.
Be prepared to change your internal and external policies and practices through engaging with the authentic voice of disabled people in the North and South.
If you are a disability organisation or charity, to reform your governance, staffing and operations structures to move towards disabled people being in the majority positions at all levels of the organisation.
If you are a donor or generalist development agency, ensure that your governance, staffing and advisory bodies are representative of society and you have at least 20% representation of disabled people at all levels of your organisation.

The signatories to this manifesto are ready and willing to work with, support and assist any organisation that wishes to travel this road with disabled people. At the same time we will continue to challenge those who ignore our legitimate demands for control of our own destiny.

Equalities National Council (UK)
Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD)
ACLIFIM (Cuba)
Special Talent Exchange Program (Pakistan)
Greenwich Association Of Disabled People, (UK)
Disability Action Council (DAC) (Cambodia)
International Disabilities Equality Agency (IDEA)
DAA
UKDPC
Fedoma (Malawi)
DEE
ASHA
Step (Pakistan)

Thank you to Mark Harrison at the International Disabilities Equality Agency (IDEA) for permission to publish the Equalize It! Manifesto at We Can Do.

IDEA is looking for more organizations to sign the manifesto and join their campaign. For more details, see the IDEA web site. For questions related to this manifesto, or to ask about your organization signing it, please contact Mark Harrison directly at Mark.Harrison@uea.ac.uk.

The text of the Equalize It! manifesto can also be viewed at the IDEA web site at:

http://disabilityequality.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20

Or, you can download the Equalize It! Manifesto in PDF format at:

http://disabilityequality.org/Equalise%20It%21.pdf

People interested in learning more about the international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) may also wish to follow the link to the RatifyNow web site at

http://www.ratifynow.org

RatifyNow is a global campaign to maximize the number of countries that ratify the CRPD.

Learn how to receive an email alert when new material is posted at We Can Do.

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OPINION: One Laptop per Child—But is it Inclusive?

Posted on 16 November 2007. Filed under: Children, Cross-Disability, Education, Opinion, technology | Tags: children with disabilities, disabilities, disability, disability and development, disability education, disabled, disabled children, disabled students, education and development, international development, laptops, Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC, One Laptop per child, students with disabilities, technology, Uruguay, XO laptops |

The Issue
Bringing laptops to children in developing countries. It’s a nifty concept, meant to help with an enormous challenge: improving the quality of education in developing countries. But is it inclusive of children with disabilities?

Even relatively casual observers of the international development field quickly learn that 77 million children worldwide are not in primary school. And perhaps you also knew that a large portion of those children have disabilities. What we don’t hear about as often is that even the 2 billion children who are fortunate enough to be able to enter a classroom, in many cases, may not be that much better off. The push to put all children in school by 2015, as per the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), has led to more schools, more teachers, and more books—but not necessarily to a better-quality education. So how do we go beyond filling seats with bodies so we can start filling heads with knowledge?

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project thinks they have part of the answer. That’s to put a laptop into the hands of every child in school in developing nations. Not just any laptop, but the XO laptop. The XO is designed specifically for child learners. It has features that allow them to create—be it a picture, a poem, a game, or a computer program. And XO laptops can communicate directly with other XO laptops if they are close enough. That allows for collaborative projects among pairs or groups of students. The laptops are also designed to be used in rugged conditions. They can be used in places where classes might meet outside in bright sunlight, or where students may have no access to electricity.

In developing countries, one of the largest barriers to obtaining resources—be it for disabled people or for their non-disabled peers—is cost. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has tackled this, at least part way, by producing a laptop that costs $200. That’s twice as much as their original goal—which was to design a $100 laptop. And that’s still out of reach for any family that lives on less than $1 a day. But it’s within reach for some country governments. Uruguay, for example, has purchased the first 100,000 XOs to come off the assembly line (see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7068084.stm
). And there may soon be other countries standing in line. The OLPC project has also introduced several ways that people in rich countries can help (see
http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php
). If things grow quickly from here, we could soon see the day when millions of children are learning through XO laptops and any competitors that might later emerge.

But for children with disabilities, the question of whether someone can and will send them a laptop in the first place is only the first half of the problem. The second half is whether the laptop is even accessible to them.

XO Laptops: Are They Suitable for Young Disabled Students?
I should note here that I have not yet seen an XO laptop for myself. Nor am I an expert in the types of adaptations that are available or most needed by people who are blind, or who have mobility impaired—or, indeed, any disability other than deafness. That means I can’t give an accurate evaluation of how usable an XO laptop is for disabled children. But I can speculate. And given how large the OLCP project hopes to become, I suggest that anyone with an interest in educating disabled children in developing countries should also be speculating. More importantly, they should be sharing their insights and ideas for remedies with the OLPC project.

On the plus side, some disabled children may find that the laptops will be a tremendous boon for them. For example, the XO is sturdier and more durable than most standard, western computers. That could be an important feature for children whose disabilities affect their behavior. They might be less likely to damage the laptop if they throw it during a tantrum or a “meltdown”, for example. Or a child with mobility impairments or dyspraxia can worry less if they drop their laptop.

Also, I like how the XO laptop allows for interactive communication with other laptop users. For children who have communication-related disabilities and who have learned to read and write, it might make communication with their non-disabled peers a little easier. Instead of being forced to talk or read lips in a modality that works poorly for them–if at all–they could have the option of typing back and forth with their classmates or the teacher. This could be especially helpful in situations where no sign language interpreter is available, which is frequently the case in developing countries. I don’t think the XO will ever be a substitute for more appropriate educational placements. (I believe that most deaf children should be in good quality, specialized schools for deaf children. But that’s a subject for another blog post.) But for deaf children who have been thrust into classrooms with no means of understanding their teacher, the laptop could potentially become a tool for teaching themselves, perhaps with the aid of their peers.

But even deaf children, if they are learning alongside hearing peers, may feel left out when their classmates start playing around with the built-in microphone and other auditory-based features. And other disabled children may find the XO laptops to be so inaccessible as to be useless. I suspect that blind children and some children with low vision—as with most computers generally—may suffer the most significant barriers. From what I can gather from their web site, the XO seems to have a very visual interface. That’s great for sighted deaf children, but bad for blind children. There seems to be no provision for screen readers of any kind: a blind child could still type but would have no way to monitor what they are typing or to read it back later. And unless there is some audio feature that I didn’t read about, the heavy graphics would be meaningless to them. That might make it harder for a child with vision impairments to interact with other students in the class. If I understand correctly, a child who wants to work on a project with someone else through the XO needs to bring up an icon representing their classmate and click it.

I also wonder about children with certain mobility impairments, particularly those that affect the use of their hands. As far as I can tell from the OLPC web site, there are no modified keyboards available. In other words, one design fits all—even when it doesn’t. And it’s not just the keyboard that might pose a problem. One of the ways to power up an XO is to either pull on a cord or operate a foot pump—either of which might be problematic for children with certain mobility impairments. What if a child could operate one type of battery re-charger but not the other? If a country buys all of its laptops in one variety, a child may not have the option of switching to equipment that is more usable for them.

Why Inclusion Matters–From the Beginning
Children with disabilities already face enormous barriers in even reaching the classroom. And many face even more barriers inside it. The XO laptop is meant to help bring the world of learning to poor children in developing nations. But for many children with disabilities, the XO laptop, as currently designed, may create new barriers to learning instead of removing them. What is especially worrying to me is that nowhere in their web site does OLPC even acknowledge the problem much less discuss what they’re doing to resolve it. (Or if they do and I missed it, tell me in the comments area below—their site is at www.laptop.org.)

The usual excuse made when a new project excludes disabled people, is, “But we’re new. We’re just starting. We had to start somewhere. We’re not ready for doing anything more specialized right now.” There are two major problems with accepting this type of excuse. First is the issue of justice. People with disabilities have always been the last people to gain access to any new technology or service. As soon as one technology is finally made at least partly accessible, something new has become mainstream to everyone else—but, once again, not for disabled people. By the time innovative deaf people in rich countries finally managed to invent a way to access telephones, for example, all their hearing, middle-class neighbors had color television–while deaf people were, once again, waiting. The delay between the time a new technology or service becomes available to non-disabled people and the time it becomes available to disabled people, in and of itself, creates barriers that prevent people with disabilities from participating fully in society. There will always be something new. And, even with advancing medical technology, there will probably always be disabled people. We will only be fully included in society when new things, too, are accessible to us from the first day they become available to the public at wide. After all, aren’t we, too, supposed to be members of the public?

The second problem with accepting the “but it’s new, give us time” excuse is that this is backwards thinking. It is PRECISELY BECAUSE a technology or project is new that the people designing it SHOULD be thinking from the start about the needs of people with disabilities. Suppose you construct a building with stairs and no ramps, then you tear part of it down in order to add the ramps years later, that’s expensive. If you remember the needs of people with disabilities while you’re still working in the blueprint stage then you can make sure it has ramps to begin with, and you can integrate the ramps into the design in a way that saves money. That’s very, very cheap. If you build 100,000 computers for Uruguay with no screen readers, and then belatedly construct a few separate devices to be attached to them later as needed, that’s expensive.

But what if they had given consideration to the needs of blind or dyslexic students, or children with other disabilities, from the beginning? Yes, it probably would have been an enormous challenge to find a way to integrate their needs into the standard design of the XO laptop without significantly increasing its cost. But if they had at least tried—even if they had tried and failed—then if nothing else, we could have been a good five years of research and development closer to achieving an XO that does succeed in including disabled children. And not only that, but it might have been cheaper than whatever add-on fix they come up with now. Or, even if they hadn’t come up with a concept that could be integrated into the standard design, they might at least have come up with design elements that make it easier to add on a fix later. What if they come up with a nice, cheap screen reader, only to find that there isn’t a good way to plug it into the existing XO laptops?

Or perhaps they could have come up with creative design elements that help, not only disabled students, but everyone. After all, curb cuts were implemented for wheelchair riders, but were quickly embraced by non-disabled parents with prams or baby carriages. Closed captions were invented to enable deaf people in rich countries to watch television, but have also been embraced by hearing immigrants learning the language of their new home. Speech recognition software for computers was invented, at least in part, for people who cannot type with their hands, but has been embraced by others as well. What kind of XO would we have had today if they hadn’t thrown away five years of opportunity to find out?

Owning the Issue
Two groups of people need take responsibility for ensuring that the built in exclusion of disabled children in developing countries does not last. First are the people operating the One Laptop Per Child project. If they’re serious about bringing laptops to all two billion children in school, then they would do well to remember that about 10 percent of the world’s population—including children in developing countries—have disabilities. They need to decide whether “all” will truly mean “all,” or if “all” really means “all except disabled children because they’re too difficult to include.”

The obligation doesn’t end with the One Laptop Per Child project, but it does begin with them: they need to be proactive. To start with, they should reach out to organizations of disabled adults and children in developing countries to share the laptop with them and find out exactly what problems they face in using it. They can begin with some of the organizations listed in “Finding Local Disability Organizations” for possible contacts. They should be talking with disabled adults, because people who have already been adapting to their own disabilities for a whole lifetime often see obvious solutions that elude everybody else. And they should be talking with parents and teachers who may notice barriers that even disabled users miss. But most importantly of all, they should be talking with disabled children in developing countries—because the best person to tell us what a disabled child needs is a disabled child.

Also, they should mention the problem of accessibility for children with disabilities throughout their web site, where appropriate. In particular, where they recruit volunteers, they should be specifically asking for people who can help make the laptop more usable for children with a wide range of disabilities. But even in other parts of their web site, for example where they talk about its design features and their future design plans, they can acknowledge its existing limitations and explain how they hope to overcome them. Possibly they could also have a separate page devoted to the topic of accessibility—but this is not a substitute for integration. “Add-on” issues rarely get the attention they deserve: if it’s important, then the organization’s concern for the issue should reverberate through everything they say and do.

Second are people around the world who are already committed to bringing more disabled children in developing countries into the classroom and giving them a high-quality education. That means parents, educators, disabled advocates, non-government organizations (NGOs) and other interested parties. People who have direct experience with the XO laptop can give their feedback to the One Laptop Per Child project. Others can review their web site and offer their advice or consultation services.

I think the One Laptop Per Child program is a good concept and a good cause worth supporting—even with its current flaws. That’s exactly why I urge them to become a more inclusive cause as well. I hope they listen—and take action.

Nicholas Negroponte and the other staff at OLPC: it’s over to you, now.

The facts, figures, and information behind the opinions expressed in this essay come from a range of sources. Most particularly I drew upon the OLPC web site, but you will also note that I link to a number of other sources throughout this article.

Edited 17 Nov. ’07 to add: Eduardo Silva points out (thank you for alerting me) that interested readers can go to
http://wiki.laptop.org
to see some of the software work that is being done to improve the XO laptop. And as Eduardo Silva indicates, they are indeed working on a text-to-voice screen reader, which you can read about at
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader
. However, I still have some concerns about this which I elaborate upon further in the comments area below.

Edited 31 Dec. ’07 to add: I wonder if a Sightsaver’s Dolphin Pen would help blind children make better use of the XO. Is there anyone reading this who is familiar with BOTH the XO AND with the Dolphin Pen (a low-cost screen reader and screen magnifier designed for use in low-income countries)? If so, I would value your input. Please do comment in the comments area below.

Edited 5 Jan. ’08 to add: THANK YOU to the anonymous contributer in the comments area below who led me to the accessibility mailing list for people who want to brainstorm ideas and solutions on how to make the XO more accessible.

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Please Submit YOUR Materials to We Can Do

Posted on 7 November 2007. Filed under: Academic Papers and Research, Announcements, Arts, Blind, Call for Papers, Case Studies, Children, Cognitive Impairments, Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), Cross-Disability, Deaf, Disability Studies, Disaster Planning & Mitigation, East Asia Pacific Region, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Education, Employment, Events and Conferences, Families, Funding, Guest Blogger, HIV/AIDS, Housing, Human Rights, Immigration, Interpreting, Introduction to "We Can Do", Jobs & Internships, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, Mobility Impariments, Multiple Disabilities, News, Opinion, Opportunities, Policy & Legislation, Poverty, Psychiatric Disabilities, Rehabilitation, Remittances, Resources, South Asian Region, Sub-Saharan Africa Region, Uncategorized, Violence, Volunteer Opportunities, Women | Tags: Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Croatia, CRPD, Cuba, disability, disability movement, disability rights, Gabon, guest blogging, Hungary, India, international development, Jamaica, Panama, publishing, We Can Do, writing |

Currently, We Can Do gathers news; announcements; academic papers; case studies; opinion pieces; information about resources; and other materials of interest to disabled advocates and international development professionals from a wide range of sources. In addition to these, from time to time, I write fresh content of my own.

I also hope to be able to depend heavily on YOU–We Can Do readers–for some of the best, most interesting, and helpful materials. Examples of materials that would interest me include, but are not limited to: “best practice” case studies; “failed practice” case studies; checklists; fundraising advice or resources; other pragmatic resources; academic papers or reports; student projects; press releases; opinion pieces; announcements; and more. For more detail, please click on “Wish List for Written Materials and Resources” at the top navigation bar.

If you can assist with my current top priority, or with any of the other items in my “wish list”, then PLEASE GET IN TOUCH. Email me at ashettle at patriot dot net or leave a short note in the comment area below and I’ll contact you.

Current Top Priority for We Can Do

Are you from Croatia, Cuba, Gabon, Hungary, India, Jamaica, or Panama? If so, were you involved with the movement to persuade your government to sign and ratify the international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)? If so PLEASE CONTACT ME (ashettle at patriot dot net, or leave a comment below with your email address).

I want to interview people involved with these movements (via email) so I can write a story describing what strategies you used; any barriers you faced along the way; how you overcame these barriers; any mistakes you made, how you corrected them, and how other countries can avoid them; what activities or techniques you think were the most critical to your success; and so forth. Sharing this type of information at We Can Do–and elsewhere–could be immensely helpful to disability movements in other countries that are working toward the same goals.

My primary written language is English, pero puedo escribir y leer, mas o menos, en espanol tambien. (Lo siento para la mala ortografia–no se como crear acentos en WordPress.) Once we are in contact, I will probably have many questions for you–and follow up questions after that!

Thank you for helping make We Can Do become a strong, good-quality resource for people with disabilities in developing countries and the people who are working hard to meet their needs.

Edited to Add: I do not post my full email address because any recognizable email address posted on the web then immediately becomes the target of “spam harvesters” and starts receiving tons of unwanted, unsolicited commercial emails. But I spelled it out above and spell it out again here. But this time I’m amplifying it because I realize that not all people have learned how to parse spelled out email addresses:

My username is: ashettle

Every email address has an @ at sign @ between the user name and the domain name, thus ashettle@

My email domain is patriot.net

Put it all together and you have my email address.

Or if that is still too confusing–or if it’s just easier for you–then feel free to leave a note below (with your email address in the area provided for it) and I’ll get in touch.

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NEWS: Human Rights Violations of Argentines with Psychosocial, Mental Disabilities

Posted on 25 October 2007. Filed under: Announcements, Cognitive Impairments, Human Rights, Latin America & Caribbean, Opinion, Psychiatric Disabilities, Violence | Tags: Argentina, Argentina institutions, Center for Legal and Social Studies, disabilities, disability, disability and development, disabled, human rights abuses, human rights violations, institutions, intellectual disabilities, international development, MDRI, mental disabilities, mental disability rights international, mental health, mental illness, Psychiatric Disabilities, psychosocial disabilities, psychosocial disability, ruined lives |

SEGREGATED FROM SOCIETY IN ATROCIOUS CONDITIONS – ARGENTINA’S MENTAL
HEALTH SYSTEM VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS

WASHINGTON, DC—September 25, 2007— Argentina is among countries with the most psychiatrists per capita in the world—yet people detained in the country’s public psychiatric institutions are subject to serious human rights violations. Ruined Lives, an investigative report released today by Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI)and the Argentine human rights organization Center for Legal and Social Studies(CELS), finds that 25,000 people are locked away in Argentina’s institutions, segregated from society, many for a lifetime and with no possibility of ever getting out.

Ruined Lives exposes widespread abuse and neglect in these institutions, including people burning to death in isolation cells, complete sensory deprivation in long-term isolation, forced sterilization and sexual and physical abuse. In one psychiatric penal ward in Buenos Aires, men were locked naked in tiny, barren isolation cells with no light or ventilation for months at a time. At another institution, four people died while locked in isolation cells. Toilets overflowed with excrement and floors were flooded with urine.

Investigators found a 16 year-old boy in a crib, his arms and legs tied to his body with strips of cloth, completely immobilized. Staff said he had been tied up since being admitted to the institution more than a year before.

“Argentina’s mental health system detains people on a massive scale without any legal protections,” said Eric Rosenthal, MDRI’s ExecutiveDirector. “The inhumane and degrading treatment we observed is banned by international human rights treaties and should not be tolerated in any society.”

MDRI is an international human rights and advocacy organization dedicated to the full participation in society of people with mental disabilities world wide. For more information, visit www.mdri.org.

CELS is an Argentine organization devoted to fostering and protecting human rights and strengthening the democratic system and the rule of law. For more information, visit www.cels.org.ar.

The report and photographs can be downloaded from the MDRI web site in either English or Spanish.

MENTAL DISABILITY RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL
1156 15th St NW, Suite 1001, Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 296-0800, Fax: (202) 728-3053
E-mail: mdri@mdri.org

http://www.mdri.org

This press release comes from Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI</a).

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Numbers Don’t Feed People–Or Do They?

Posted on 8 October 2007. Filed under: Funding, Opinion, Resources | Tags: disabilities, disability, disability and development, disabled, international development, numbers, Statistics, UNICEF |

[Looking for disability-related statistics? Skip to the bottom for useful links.]

Some of the people reading this blog are working with disabled people in developing countries who are starving for food, for medical care, for shelter, for clothing, for an education, for vocational training, for jobs, and for equal opportunity to participate in community and family life. In short, you serve people starving for all basic necessities.

When you are busy educating people with cognitive impairments in Guatemala how to protect themselves from AIDS, or if you’re working to persuade a village in rural Bangladesh to make their new school building wheelchair accessible, then the idea of gathering statistics may seem remote from your daily concerns. Why do we need research to understand people’s problems? Just go to the streets of Uganda or to people’s homes in Yemen and see the problems yourself! Why waste funds on a good census of disabled people when the same money could be used to start helping them?

But most of us–including grassroots advocates in developing countries–know that statistics can provide crucial information. For people in a position to decide how and where money should be spent, statistics can help them understand how many people need help and where they are located so they can ensure that they use resources wisely. Most decision-makers do not have time, money, or staff, to go out into the field to see all the challenges that people face first hand–especially if they serve a large geographical area with a large population. Numbers can never give the full picture of where all the needs are located. But they can be a helpful, and critical, starting point.

For grassroots organizations that already know who the people are they want to help and what their biggest challenges are, having well-researched, reliable numbers can make it easier to secure funding for the programs you want to establish. Wisely chosen statistics, when they are available, can make your funding proposal stronger and more persuasive.

For example, if you simply say, “People with mobility impairments cannot go to health clinics because public transportation isn’t accessible. Please make all the city buses wheelchair accessible.” The city might wonder, “Why should we invest thousands or millions of dollars (or Euros or pesos) that we don’t have to serve what is probably only a tiny number of people?” But suppose you could say, “We have 100,000 people in this region with mobility impairments. We did a study in which we interviewed 500 people with mobility impairments. Half of them have never been to a clinic in their entire lives, and another one-third say they have only visited a clinic once or twice when a relative or neighbor was able to transport them. One of the most common reason they give for not going to health clinics is that they cannot use the public buses to get there. Yet, among the thousands of buses in the city, only 4 have wheelchair lifts.”

This kind of information could make the difference between enough funding or none at all. Statistics don’t feed people, or purchase Braille textbooks, or put wheelchair lifts in public buses. But they can help persuade people with resources to support projects that do.

It can be an enormous challenge for grassroots workers to gather appropriate data, or to find data that has been collected by others. Often, the exact numbers that you need or want may not yet exist at all. It may become necessary to use the “next best thing.” For example, if you cannot find a census on the number of disabled people in your country (the “prevalence” of disability), then you could try to find similar statistics on people with disabilities in a country that is very similar to yours in ethnicity and socio-economic status.

Resources are available on the web that may be able to help you track down some of the numbers you need. The newest of these focuses on statistics related to children with disabilities:

http://www.childinfo.org/disability.html

UNICEF has created this resource in acknowledgment that children with disabilities may often experience discrimination even from service providers and their own family members. In their documents and publications area, they have papers you can download in PDF format on topics such as violence toward children with disabilities; an initiative on “child-friendly” schools in Africa; and efforts in inclusive education in the East Asia and Pacific region. Their statistics tables provides statistics related to disabled children in selected countries.

http://go.worldbank.org/UA734UP0G0

For other statistics related to adults and children with disabilities around the world, particularly developing countries, the World Bank has some useful links and papers available. Researchers seeking to improve their data collection methods may find some of the publications listed at the top of this page of interest. People looking for statistics that have already been gathered will want to follow the links provided at this page to find databases and tables of statistics from a range of sources.

Still more links to potentially useful resources are listed at:

http://go.worldbank.org/2K4BBFTS20

Not all statistics you want are provided in convenient on-line databases or tables. That means you may need to expand your search. For example, it can sometimes be helpful to look for research publications on the general topics you are interested in to see if some of those publications have numbers that will be useful to you. For example, if you want statistics related to education, then try searching for research studies related to educating disabled children.

A long list of research papers on disabled people in developing countries is provided at

http://go.worldbank.org/6WYT9ARJI0

Although most of these publications are in English, a few are translated into other languages.

Also try locating peer-reviewed journals related to your profession in your country to see if any of these have published recent research on disabled people.

Many international organizations of (and for) people with disabilities have relevant statistics if you search their web pages carefully. You may wish to follow some of the many links offered at the “blogroll” on this page–see the right-hand navigation bar, or scroll down to the very bottom of this page, and look for the name of an organization that seems relevant to your needs and concerns. As just one example, Action on Disability and Development has a few quick facts and numbers about disabled people on their “Disability Facts” page. Or you can find information related to HIV/AIDS among people with disabilities at the HIV/AIDS Disability Global Survey.

Don’t overlook the links page for the organizations you look at (if there is one): following links from other web sites may lead you to helpful new resources.

If you have been to We Can Do before then you may have noticed that this blog has a new appearance and structure. How do you like it? Do you find it easier to navigate and find the information you’re looking for? Or is it harder? Any suggestions for how this blog can be improved in general? Please share your feedback in the comments area at the post where I describe We Can Do’s new presentation. You do not need to register in order to leave comments at this blog.

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Channeling Remittances from Disabled Emigrants

Posted on 25 August 2007. Filed under: Immigration, Opinion, Remittances | Tags: disabled emigrants, emigrants, Florida, Guatemala, immigrants, Jewish, Remittances |

When we talk about fighting poverty, disease, ignorance, and hunger in developing countries–among people with disabilities or otherwise–most of the time we think of donors as being a key part of the solution. We think of local and international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), or development banks, or bi-lateral donors (i.e., the governments of rich countries). Some of us also remember to think of poor people with disabilities in developing countries themselves as being part of the solution to their own problems. What they need isn’t more handouts. Often, what they need is education, training, tools, resources, and funding to back their own ideas for how they can escape poverty and improve their lives.

But how many of us stop to think of how we could harness the energy, passion, and–yes–the dollars, Euros, and Pesos of expatriates with disabilities in supporting their disabled peers who never left home?

It seems that at least some non-disabled immigrants do work together to find ways to use their money to help not only their families but also entire communities in their homeland. For one example, see this news article entitled “South Florida Guatemalans to learn how remittances can help homeland.” According to this article, in one county in Florida, USA, the local Jewish community has experience supporting community projects in Israel. And they have been teaching lessons learned from their experiences to the local Guatemalan immigrant community so that they, too, can use their remittances to strengthen the Guatemalan economy. The local Guatemalan immigrant community raises money support schools, clinics, and agricultural cooperatives at home. Byt doing that, they can help their loved ones and their neighbors find hope and opportunity without needing to leave Guatemala.

How do we ensure that people with disabilities, too, can benefit from projects supported by remittances?

One important approach would be to work with immigrant communities, such as the Guatemalan community of South Florida, that are already coordinating efforts to support projects at home. We need to systematically educate them about the importance of ensuring that the schools and clinics they build are accessible to people with disabilities. And we need to reach out to them so they understand why they should ensure that disabled people, too, actively participate in agricultural cooperatives.

In the long run, this may be the more promising approach. If all projects are segregated–these projects for non-disabled people, and those projects for disabled people–then people with disabilities will always be the ones who lose the most. Because there will always be more money going to the projects for non-disabled people than there is to projects for disabled people. If mainstream projects funded by predominantly non-disabled emigrants exclude people with disabilities, even if only by accident or through ignorance, then disabled people in developing countries could lose out on major opportunities for gaining an education, improving their health, or training for a better-paid job.

But, don’t forget the importance of Deaf and disabled emigrants.

According to World Bank data, nearly 3 percent of people from developing countries have migrated elsewhere. And emigrants sent home more than $200 billion a year in 2006 alone.

Research into emigrants and the remittances they send home is still a relatively new field. When it comes to data on subgroups of emigrants, there still isn’t much data even on groups that are relatively easy to identify, such women versus men. Data about smaller populations that are harder to define or identify, such as disabled people, is still very scarce to non-existent. So we can’t know for sure how many emigrants have disabilities.

But I suspect we can be reasonably confident that people with disabilities do migrate, though it is difficult to guess how many. On one hand, we know people with disabilities are more likely to be poor. [This link will download a PDF file, 157 KB] This could well mean they would have more difficulty paying for the travel costs that would be required in order for them to emigrate. On the other hand, they–and their parents and families–may be more motivated than their non-disabled peers to emigrate abroad precisely because they know it is much harder to obtain an education or find a job at home. I know I’ve met many deaf people, at Gallaudet University and on-line, who have emigrated, either for a few years of their lives or permanently, for these reasons.

Whatever the number of expatriates from developing countries who have disabilities, it is probably also safe to assume that at least some of them send remittances home. Probably many disabled emigrants send their money to their families–just like their non-disabled peers. But judging by the passion and commitment of some Deaf expatriates I have met from various developing countries to the Deaf communities that they have left behind, I would venture the guess that some of the money sent back home is meant to be used for helping the local Deaf community there. And I would venture the guess that wheelchair users, blind people, and people with other disabilities might also, in at least some cases, harbor a tremendous desire to make a difference for other people with disabilities in their native lands.

This could be an important source of remittances for Deaf and disability communities in developing countries. Deaf and disabled emigrants often know first hand exactly what kinds of challenges their peers are facing at home. And they are likely to have a better sense than other, non-disabled emigrants exactly what kinds of projects Deaf and disabled people need in their native countries. And they may be more prepared to support specialized projects and organizations that their non-disabled peers may be reluctant to support. Schools for deaf children, for example. Or training targeted at helping wheelchair users learn how to design, build, and repair their own wheelchairs.

So, at least some Deaf and disabled emigrants may already be trying to support local NGOs or projects targeted at Deaf or disability communities at home. How can we help them ensure that the money they send home is used wisely? Or that their money has the maximum possible impact on the lives of Deaf or disabled people at home? How can we help them use their funds in a way that empowers their Deaf and disabled peers at home? For example, by supporting projects that the local people want to pursue even if the wealthier expatriates might like to support something else? And, can we help Deaf and disabled immigrant communities find better ways of raising more funds to send home?

Do we need something similar to the training workshop that Jewish people have offered to Guatemalan immigrants in South Florida? But targeted at Deaf or disabled immigrant communities around the world? If so, how could we start an appropriately designed network of workshops? How would we reach the people we need to reach?

I would be interested in reading your thoughts in the comments area below.

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The Farmer, the Spoon, and the Plow: Why the International Disability Rights Treaty (CRPD) is Worth Celebrating

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