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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.

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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

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

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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.

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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.

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.

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“Poor people are disproportionately disabled, and people with disabilities are disproportionately poor”

Robert Holzmann, Director of World Bank’s Social Protection Department, 2001.

Disability and poverty reinforce one another – intensifying marginalization and insecurity for PwDs. PwDs are among the poorest of the poor, while people living in poverty are more at risk than others to become disabled. According to the UN, 10% of the world’s population have a disability, with about 75% living in the developing world. [1] [2]

Source: [3]

With up to 50% of disabilities preventable and poverty-related, scaling-up prevention interventions must be a priority, in conjunction with treatment and rehabilitation. Enhancing the overall living standard of people living in poverty and improving general health services can play a major role in reducing disability incidence rates throughout the developing world.

Publications & Resources

Fact Sheets

• Inclusion International:
  Fact Sheet on Poverty and Disability
• Australian Council for International Development (ACFID):
  Fact Sheet on Disability and the Millennium Development Goals (2003)
• Christian Blind Mission (CBM):
  Fact Sheet on Disability and Poverty

Policies & Papers

• Department for International Development (DFID) [UK]:
  Poverty: Bridging the Gap (2005)
• 400 million R:
  400 million R (2006)
• Asian Development Bank (ADB):
  Disability Brief (2005)
• Asian Development Bank (ADB):
  Disabled People and Development (2006)
• Christian Blind Mission (CBM):
  Disability and Development Policy

Reports

• Action on Disability and Development (ADD):
  Chronic Poverty and Disability (2001)
• Asian Development Bank (LJ Edmonds):
  Disabled People & Development (2005)
• Christoffel-Blindenmission & Handicap International:
  Making PRSP Inclusive (2006)
• Department for International Development (DFID) [UK]:
  Disability, Poverty and Development (2000)
• Department for International Development (DFID) [UK]:
  Disability, Poverty and Development (2005)
• Disability Knowledge and Research (Disability KaR):
  Disability, Poverty and Millennium Development Goals (2005)
• Handicap International:
  Good Practices for the Economic Inclusion of People with Disabilities
  in Developing Countries – Funding Mechanisms for Self-Employment(2006)
• International Labour Organisation (ILO):
  Disability and Poverty Reduction Strategies (2002)
• Inclusion International:
  Hear our Voices: People with an Intellectual Disability and their Families Speak Out on Poverty and Exclusion (2006)
• Inclusion International:
  Poverty and Disability in the Americas (2004)
• United Nations ESCAP:
  Disability at a Glance: a Profile of 28 Countries and Areas
  in Asia and the Pacific (2006)

Links

• Disability KaR:
  Links to disability and poverty resources
• Independent Living Institute:
  Social Responses to Disability & Poverty in Economically Weaker Countries: Research, Trends, Critique, and Lessons Usually Not Learnt. Annotated bibliography of modern and historical material
• World Bank Disability Page:
  With links to Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers
• Ask Source:
  Disability and Poverty Reduction links

[Click here for other disability & development links]

References

1. Bank, W., Disability Statistics. 2006, World Bank.
2. Helander, E., Prejudice and Dignity – An Introduction to Community Based Rehabilitation, UNDP, Editor. 1993, UNDP: New York.
3. DFID, Disability, poverty and development. 2000, DFID: London. p. 17.