______________________________________________

United Nations, January 2009

Behind closed doors of psychiatric institutions in many impoverished countries, too many children and adults with mental disabilities live their lives in suffering and isolation.

In Paraguay, autistic young men like Jorge and Julio have suffered at the hands of a system that has failed to understand and protect them.

Download Transcript >

A charming short film celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, produced by ChildFund Australia and VIAfilm.

For more info, visit www.childfund.org.au

____________________________________________________________

What International Day of People with Disabilities means to me

IDPwD is a day to take time out to reflect on how people with disabilities have been included in my life: how we have impacted on each other. I hope all parties can say positively.

Christine Walton

Part of me is filled with satisfaction on how far the general community has come in understanding issues related to disability and part of me is still challenged by how far we still need to go. I look forward to the time when IDPwD is a total celebration of us just being a totally inclusive community.

- Christine Walton, ADDC

What does this day mean to you?

Have your say. Read below what  IDPwD means to other people.

Source: Enable. UN

The MDGs established a unifying set of developmental objectives for the global community.  Bringing together United Nations agencies, governments and civil society around eight key development issues, the MDGs foster collaborative action to reduce poverty, improve health and address educational and environmental concerns around the world’s most pressing development problems.  The MDGs are specifically designed to address the needs of the world’s poorest citizens and the world’s most marginalized populations.

The eight Millennium Development Goals

MDGs will not be achieved however if their policies, programs, monitoring and evaluation do not include persons with disabilities.  While persons with disabilities make up ten per cent of the world’s population, disability is associated with twenty per cent of global poverty according to the World Bank’s findings.  Currently, there are no references to persons with disabilities either in the MDGs themselves or in the accompanying body of guidelines and policies, programs and conferences that are part of the on-going MDG efforts.  In addition, the new revisions of the MDGs currently in process do not include persons with disabilities.

The international community needs urgently to act to mainstream disability in the MDG processes.  This requires policy makers and technical experts specifically tasked with the programming, monitoring and evaluation of current MDG programs to begin to consider disability so that the next phase of the implementation of the MDGs will include disability as an important component of its core mission.

Download Full Article and Further Resources >

Source: Djenana Jalovcic, Malcolm Peat, Darko Krznaric, Beth Richan – Queen’s University, International Centre for the Advancement of Community Based Rehabilitation

Extract:

MDGs and Disability: Leaving 600 Million Disabled People Out

Despite of the magnitude of disability,  people with disabilities are not mentioned in any of the eight MDGs. Persons with disabilities are largely invisible, ignored, marginalized and excluded from mainstream society.

Most development agencies and practitioners recognize that the MDGs cannot be achieved without addressing the needs and rights of disabled people. However, the relationship and relevance of disability to the MDGs is not so well defined and recognized.

Many development agencies focus on MDGs, and disability which is not included in MDGs is not a development priority.

There is an urgent need to mainstream disability in MDGs. Disability must be taken into consideration by policy makers and technical experts when programming, implementing, monitoring and evaluating the current and all future MDG programs.

Advocates for mainstreaming disability propose inclusive MDGs:

1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty For People with Disabilities and their Families
2. Achieve Inclusive Education
3. Promote Gender Equality for Women with Disabilities
4. Reduce the Mortality of Children with Disabilities
5. Achieve the Rights of Children and Families
6. Combat HIV/AIDS
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Download Full Article >

Source: European Disability Forum

The Council of the European Union, the European Community ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD). This ratification represents a major policy shift toward enforcing human rights obligations and putting disability on top of the human rights agenda: this is the first time in the European Union history that the Community is going to accede to an international human rights treaty.

Nine core international human rights instruments

There are nine core international human rights treaties at the UN level. Entered into force on May 2008, the CRPD is the first United Nations Convention specifically related to the rights of people with disabilities; it became a reality largely due to active mobilization of those who participated in negotiating the text. For the EDF, this constitutes a historic achievement in the struggle against violations of the human rights of people with disabilities.

The instrumental Convention

The CRPD has set a number of precedents: it is the first major Human Rights treaty of the 21st century and the fastest to have been ratified by an impressive number of countries since its entry into force in 2008. With 143 signatories and 74 ratifications only just 32 months after opening the Convention for signatures, the UN CRPD sets an unprecedented record of commitment by the international community.

More Information >

Source: The African Union and the European Union partnership

At least one in five of the world’s poorest people are disabled but there is as yet no widespread acceptance or push to ensure that 20% of the poorest recipients of aid programmes are disabled.

Disabled people are so severely excluded from all areas of society that there is very little information or comparative data on the effects of disability on individual, family and community well being and almost no assessment of the economic implications of disability.

But there is a very strong link between disability and poverty which implies that there is not one of the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goal targets that can actually be met without now considering how to include disabled people.

But inclusion, or mainstreaming of disability into development programming is proving to be an enormous challenge. This paper sets out to highlight some of the main reasons why this may be the case and offer some recommendations for how to overcome them.

The Models of Disability: Individual and Social models

Summary

1. Social model of disability
2. Create policy commitments on disability inclusion
3. Collect disaggregated data on the economic and social situation of disabled people
4. Budget for access

Download Full Article >

A TV commercial featuring the late Professor Fred Hollows, first run as a clip on YouTube, has been named the world’s best not-for-profit TV advertisement for 2009.

See what IDPwD personally means to people >

International Day of People with Disability (IDPwD) is a United Nations sanctioned day that aims to promote an understanding of people with disability and encourage support for their dignity, rights and well-being.

IDPwD also seeks to increase awareness of the benefits of the integration of people with disability in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.

IDPwD brings together people with disability, community organisations, businesses, individuals and all levels of government. It unites people around the world in celebrating and acknowledging the contributions, skills and achievements of people with disability.

In 1992, at the conclusion of the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons (1983-1992), the General Assembly proclaimed 3 December as the International Day of Disabled Persons. Based on feedback from the disability sector, the Australian Government has adopted the name International Day of People with Disability.

The UN announced a theme for the Day that is based on the goal of full and equal enjoyment of human rights, and participation in society by people with disability. The 2009 theme is;

Making the MDGs Inclusive: Empowerment of persons with disabilities and their communities around the world.

It is important that all individuals and organizations working in disability and development make the most of this opportunity to advocate for inclusive practices in development as well as celebrate achievements to date.

See what IDPwD personally means to people >

What’s going on

ABC1 is screening the premier of the rock documentary titled “Rudely Interrupted” Thursday December 3rd 9:30pm. The fly on the wall ‘rocumentary’ follows the band from pubs and clubs around Melbourne to the United Nations and beyond.

Rehabilitation International (RI) & the RI Foundation are celebrating with a fundraiser showing of the RI video at the RI office in New York. For further information Email Rachael@riglobal.org

In Timor Leste participants in a celebration will be people with disabilities, government officials, Xanana G, NGOs, religious and local leaders, family members. There will be a march through Dili and then speeches at the Stadium Municipio Dili.

United Nations Enable are celebrating with a day long event at the UN Headquarters. Guest Speakers include Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Ambassador H.E. Ms. Susan E. Rice,Mr. Sha Zukang, Under Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Mr. Kiyotaka Akasaka, Under Secretary-General of Public Information (DPI) and Ms. Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR).

Registration for the event open to all NGOs in Consultative Status with ECOSOC and those accredited to the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities online at: http://www.un.org/ecosoc/csonet

ParaQuad’s annual Wheels for a Day race was held on Monday, 9^th November in Sydney’s Martin Place. For more information visit www.paraquad.org.au/LatestNews/WheelsforaDay

Burke and Beyond, Onemda, Interact and Scope are supporting the celebration of the International Day of the Disabled Person by organising their fifth concert since 2005. This year, the Concert will be held at Macleay Park on Belmore Road in Balwyn North, Melbourne on Thursday the 3rd of December.

Epilepsy – “The Little Dying” in Swahili – the challenge to make a ‘boring’ subject interesting.

English – October 12, 2009

Published by: Dutch Coalition on Disability and Development (DCDD) – Jeanet de Jong

Karijn Aussems, 32, is director of the NGO Youth on the Move, an organisation in Kenya that works with people with epilepsy. She left The Netherlands and moved to Kenya in 2008 and in the process she has learned that epilepsy is often seen as a boring subject; both for potential sponsors, and for people in the streets.

Karijn Aussems, 32, is director of the NGO Youth on the Move

“We are making it more interesting and we educate people. We start by listening to the personal stories, experience, behaviour and ideas and we use this in education.”

I met Karijn during the summer of 2006. She just received her Bachelor’s Degree in Community Development and was very much focused on moving to Kenya and start activities for Youth on the Move in Nairobi. The framework of the organisation and its aims were put in place, but the challenge of getting sponsorship remained. “Somehow epilepsy seems to be a boring subject, it doesn’t have the ‘sexy’ image like AIDS or empowerment of women. These subjects are given lots of attention and money. People in the Western world talk about these issues. When it comes to epilepsy this is not the case”.

When we met Karijn came across as if she was in a hurry. “I am trying to catch up time”, she says. Karijn knows what it feels like to have epilepsy; she lived with it for 22 years. It restricted her life in many ways. After a successful operation some years ago, she now lives a life without limitations due to epilepsy and is more self confident than ever before. However she clearly remembers the way she was bullied in primary school, the way she was not able to rely on her body and the uncertainty about being ‘different’. It was her personal history that motivated Karijn to start Youth on the Move. The choice to work in Kenya was made when, working as an intern, she found out that in Kenya there is hardly any information available that helps to understand what epilepsy is, what it means and how you can live with it.

Read Full Article on DCDD Website >