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March 31, 2010
Report from Carlos-Chile
Dear Jica friends:
Friday the 25th was a great day for inclusive rebuilding efforts in Chile. The Social Inclusion and Disability Commission of Universidad Austral de Chile and the National Planning Ministry held a successful meeting.
The Government analyzed the University’s proposal on how to rebuild Chile with universal design, improving disaster relief aids including people with disabilities needs, and to look for financial sources.
Later this day, we start collaborating with the National Disability Service (a service subordinated to the National Planning Ministery). All efforts and help are truly needed. We estimate 80,000 People with disabilities lost everything in the disaster.
March the 31th an important meeting will be held to coordinate disaster relief aids on field.
Carlos Kaiser (Leaders' Course 2003)
Posted by jicafriends at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2010
2nd International Deaf Expo 2010-India
Dear jicafriends,
The organizations all over the nation have united with World Organizations to conduct 2nd International Deaf Expo 2010: A conference on empowering technologies in educating the Deaf/Hard of Hearing from 13th to 17th December 2010 at New Delhi This Deaf expo organised by DEAF LEADERS, (Deaf Empowerment Activities For Literacy, Education, Accessible Development, Employment, Rehabilitation & Sports) India.
http://www.deafexpo2010.com/introduction.htm
Posted by jicafriends at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2010
Invitation for Participation in Disabled Peoples’ National Congregation, 2010 in Bangladesh
Dear Colleagues/ Friends,
Greetings from National Alliance of Disabled Peoples Organizations (NADPO)!
We have the immense pleasure to inform you that a daylong Disabled Peoples’ National Congregation , 2010 is going to be held on Monday 29th March 2010 from 9:00 am to 5:00pm with the initiative of National Alliance of Disabled People’s Organizations (NADPO) in Bangladesh at historic Polton Maydan, Dhaka. This congregation main focus is “Disabled People in Development of Bangladesh”.
National Alliance of Disabled People’s Organizations (NADPO) is a national network of Disabled people’s organizations (DPOs) of Bangladesh to promote human rights of disabled people through full participation, equalization of opportunities and enhancement their abilities and accelerate their initiatives. The member organizations of NADPO are facilitating to development of capacity of the disabled People and their grassroots organizations’. It apparently seems that a clear idea regarding the importance of DPOs, disabled peoples and their role that has not yet been realized by the decision makers, political leaders, development partners, planners and different professionals in the country. In consideration of all of theses, NADPO is going to organize this congregation to increase the sensitivity among the responsible parties in the country. We hope more than one hundred thousands disabled people will attend from different part of the country in this congregation. You are cordially invited. To make this event successful your participation will highly be appreciated.
We hope that your presence in the congregation will contribute to achieve the rights of the disabled people in Bangladesh.
We are looking forward to meet you at the congregation.
With regards
Md. Jahangir Alam
Secretary General
National Alliance of Disabled People’s Organizations (NADPO)
For farther information & quarries:
E-mail:
pwdscongregation.nadpo@yahoo.com
pwdscongregation.nadpo@gmail.com
Posted by jicafriends at 04:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2010
Haiti's Rising Urgency
The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.
Two months after a 7.3 magnitude quake struck Haiti on January 12, leaving approximately 230,000 people dead and more than 1.2 million people homeless, there are many questions. How are the people coping? Is the aid getting through? Where will Haiti's displaced people find new homes, and how fast will they get there?
In order to get some answers, I combed through the international press, and I was dismayed at the lack of updated information. After reaching out to Worldpress readers through Twitter, asking for Haiti updates, I received hundreds of emails from Haitians and visitors to the country, and they all expressed that the situation in Haiti grows more urgent with each passing day.
While some of the emails were full of hope, many were full of fear and despair. One aid worker stressed the dire need for humanitarian help, especially as seasonal rains could threaten those left homeless with an outbreak of disease.
An orphanage worker said that there were 280,000 orphans before the disaster struck, and now an estimated 20,000 or more since. More than two months later, thousands of children are still separated from their parents. Aid is still desperately needed in some of the more remote areas in Haiti, and one email mentioned that machete-armed gangs are still lurking about.
In early March, the Batey Relief Alliance sent a team of dental and medical specialists from the United States to barely accessible communities like Anse-a-Pitre to deliver much-needed dental and medical care to children and their families living in horrendous conditions. Many Haitians are living in inaccessible communities and are completely isolated from medical services and international aid.
The emails from and about amputees were the hardest to read. According to one, between 6,000 and 8,000 people have lost limbs, and the numbers continue to grow as people suffer untreated infections. Thousands more suffered complicated fractures, some of which could turn into amputations if not managed properly.
A recent amputee was full of fear because the disabled are often treated as pariahs and isolated from society in Haiti. "Disabilities are ridiculed and thought of as a curse," she wrote.
One man said that in Haiti three out of four people are unemployed, and the work that does exist requires physical labor, making the situation very scary for him. He said that he couldn't get work when he had two legs, so how would he survive with just one? "You are a not a person if you are handicapped," he wrote.
Haiti, a country of 9 million that had limited capacity to treat an estimated 800,000 disabled people before the quake, lost two of its three prosthetics labs when the buildings were destroyed or damaged. A smaller lab remains in the south, but it desperately needs materials to make prosthetic devices.
Many amputees remain in fly-swarming hospital tents, and those who have been discharged have little hope, with no rehabilitation facilities, few physical therapists, and no chance of getting a prosthesis. A scant supply of crutches, canes and wheelchairs are trickling in through donations, but there are few paved roads, making navigating a wheelchair nearly impossible.
Michel Pean, Haiti's secretary of state for the integration of the disabled, recently said that Haiti's disabled—about 8 percent of the population even before the quake—had long been treated as second-class citizens, but the government has recently taken legal steps to recognize their rights and opened offices to serve them in the countryside. Ideally, Pean said, post-earthquake reconstruction could provide the impetus to make Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, more accessible to the disabled and create a national institute for rehabilitation.
For the moment, the focus is on making sure the thousands who underwent lifesaving amputations have a future.
"The situation for newly disabled persons is very delicate," Pean said. "They urgently need not only medical care, but food and a place to live. Also, we cannot forget those disabled before the disaster who, because of their handicap, are having trouble getting access to humanitarian aid."
"Haiti is trying to go back to normality, but several years will pass before everything goes back to the way it was before January 12," one aid worker wrote. "And excuse my negativity, but the way the Haitians lived before January 12 shouldn't really be considered normal."
Thanks to international aid, thousands of families have received tarps or tents that give them shelter, but it is not nearly enough given the huge demand, and many men and women wander around the city looking for wood, brass or nylon to build weak living structures they sadly call
home. Families who aren't as lucky to find building materials simply form tents out of bed sheets.
Almost all the capital's parks, soccer fields, school yards and even a country-club golf course in suburban Pétionville are packed with people living in flimsy structures under terrible conditions. They have no water, electricity or a sanitation system that could prevent the spread of epidemics.
Haiti's inhabitants, as well as its authorities, are more concerned about the upcoming hurricane season, which begins on June 1, than rain, since none of the provisional settlements have conditions to withstand the strong winds of a hurricane. Despite the efforts of the international community, thousands of Haitians will have no shelter during the hurricane season.
Around 200,000 tents have been delivered in Haiti, and the number might reach 240,000, but those shelters are too weak to deal with tropical cyclones. The massive distribution of tarps—and to a much lesser extent, tents—has reached 53 percent of the 1.3 million people in need of
shelter, according to a March 11 U.N. report.
Educators say that classes do not have a set date to begin. They were supposed to start by April, which would be almost impossible since more than 80 percent of the schools in the earthquake zone were destroyed or severely damaged. Nearly 4,000 students and more than 700 teachers,
principals and staff were killed during afternoon classes. All that's left of the Ministry of Education's main building is a crater filled with torn workbooks and lost teachers' ID cards.
A petition has been delivered to President Preval demanding that schools reopen immediately, be they in tents, temporary buildings or other makeshift facilities. But others are urging caution before rushing back into a system that never really worked in the first place. The problems are monumental: Just one in 10 Haitian teachers is a qualified educator, according to the Inter-American Development Bank, and a third have not even completed ninth grade.
The government is unable to support more than a handful of schools, leaving the system dominated by fly-by-night, for-profit storefront schools whose onerous fees and other costs keep half of Haiti's children from enrolling at any given time. Wealthy Haitians and foreigners opt out entirely, putting their children in upscale schools that cost some $8,000 per year—more than most Haitians will spend on food and basic necessities in 20 years.
Buildings were so unsafe that one school collapsed on its own in 2008, killing 100 students and adults. Two months after the earthquake, Port-au-Prince still has thousands of constructions that are partly destroyed or about to roll down the hillsides.
Another devastating reality is that Haiti's best and brightest were lost in the earthquake. They were the educated few of Haiti, an up-and-coming generation of nurses, technicians, office managers and college students. These people kept the books, educated the young, fixed the computers and were an integral part of building up Haiti. Now they're gone, just when their struggling country needs them most. Because the earthquake struck just before 5:00 pm, it annihilated office buildings and disproportionately killed the young professionals who were working in them. "So many of those bright young people who were going the extra mile to make Haiti work were crushed at their desks," a nurse wrote me.
"It is a generation that decided not to leave the country. They chose to work for the country," said Dieusibon Pierre-Merite, a Haitian sociologist with a United Nations anti-gang program that lost several staffers in the quake. "They are the ones who died." It will impact our culture, the future of Haiti. "The list of those lost is long. It includes judges who investigated violations of law in a country where street justice still rules; the Foreign Ministry's point man on relations with the neighboring Dominican Republic; at least 10 agronomists working at the agricultural ministry
to restore Haiti's farm sector; and three of Haiti's leading women's rights advocates, Magalie Marcelin, Myriam Merlet and Anne Marie Coriolan.
Preparations for the next disaster will have to go on without Ginna Porcena, the dynamic director of the National Geospatial Institute, who was part of a group of scientists who wanted to establish seismology stations in Haiti. The earthquake also killed many foreign aid workers and usinesspeople who cared deeply about Haiti and would have been the first to pitch in after the disaster. The United Nations lost 101 staffers, including the mission's top two officials.
Compounding the loss of Haiti's best and brightest is a quickening brain drain, as people with the ability and means to leave are abandoning the ravaged country. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press he has watched with dismay as educated youths boarded planes to the United States and elsewhere. They leave because Haiti, always a difficult place to live, became impossible after the quake, he said. "I was looking at their faces: They were escaping a country and they had no intention to go back," Bellerive said. "I feel love for the people that have lost family ... but I believe it's even harder for the country to see living people that could do so much to rebuild Haiti, leaving Haiti."
Only half of Haitians ever see the inside of a classroom, and only 2 percent complete high school, according to UNICEF.
Haiti has gone through such losses of talent before, usually in times of political upheaval. Many fled or were killed under the father-and-son Duvalier dictatorships from 1957 to 1986. People also escaped reprisals under the U.S.-backed junta of General Raoul Cedras in the early 1990s, under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and in the violent chaos that followed Aristide's 2004 ouster.
But the losses this time are far more significant. The destruction was so widespread and instantaneous—gutting the capital and its institutions at precisely the moment when help, guidance and new ideas were most needed—that the absence will be felt for decades.
One email asked if I knew what preparations would be made to arrange a presidential contest before President Préval's term expires early next year. Most if not all polling stations in the quake zone were damaged or destroyed, and the hundreds of thousands of voters who were not killed were displaced or left without ID cards.
Most of the emails I received contained more questions than updates. Who will take care of the orphaned children? Where will Haitians live? When will the children be able to go back to school? What will happen to the amputees? Is the departure of U.S. troops a sign of dwindling international interest in the plight of the Haitian people? With each week, and a looming spring rainy season that could bring devastating flooding to low-lying camps, the answers to those questions grow more
urgent.
http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/3514.cfm
Posted by jicafriends at 01:44 PM | Comments (1)
March 16, 2010
Zambia: Hikaumba calls for promotion and protection of interests of disabled employees-Zambia
The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.
The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has called on government to come up with mandatory laws that promote and protect persons living with disabilities at work places.
ZCTU president Leonard Hikaumba noted that most disabled people have over the years been subjected to segregation and unfair treatment by their employers. He said despite their physical challenges, disabled persons have the potential to positively contribute to the growth of the country through various skills.
Mr. Hikaumba said this in Lusaka today when he officially opened a one day workshop organized by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in conjunction with various worker representatives aimed at equipping worker representatives with knowledge and information needed to become committed advocates for disabled persons.
Meanwhile Mr. Hikaumba has called on organizations intending to construct buildings to have the disabled persons in mind. He said it is sad that most work places in the country are not user friendly to disabled persons.
Mr. Hikaumba said it is important for organizations to ensure that their buildings have staircase and access ramps for persons with disabilities to avail them easy access to their buildings.
Speaking earlier ILO Skills and Employability Senior Specialist, Barbara Murray, said there is need for employers to change their attitude towards disabled people.
Ms Murray observed that disabled people are equal partners in development hence the need for them to be given equal employment opportunities just like any other person. She has since appealed to employers to give fair working conditions to persons living with disabilities just like their able-bodied counterparts.
http://www.lusakatimes.com/?p=24736
Posted by jicafriends at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2010
Report from Carlos - Chile
Dear friends,
Please feel free to improve this paper. methodology contained is to be used for everyone, just please mention Universidad Austral de Chile as the source. If you improve it oplease let us know your contribution
Proposal [ PDF file ]
--
Carlos Kaiser Mansilla
Posted by jicafriends at 03:26 PM | Comments (0)
Report from Kassiyet - Kazakhstan
Dear jicafriends,
I'd like to tell you some news.
I was in business trip in our capital Astana. There was the alumni reunion of JICA. There are around 1 thousand of JICA participants in Kazakhstan.
There were Japan ambassador in Kazakhstan, head of the JICA offices in Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan, people from JICA & Japan Center of Kazakhstan and around 400 JICA participants of different years. I met people from Kazakhstan who were in TIC in the same time with me.
After meeting there was stand-up meal with Japanese food.
Please see the photos from all courses including our leadership development program.
I have an idea about implementing of special equipment for blind in Almaty. To get money from the national budget for next year we should talk about it right now.
I've held a presentation about training in Japan in the Republican library for blind. I told how white canes are making by blind persons in Hamamatsu.
Lyazzat (Vocational Rehab 2007) and me visited the Ministry of Labour & Social Work, OSCE, DPUN. We talked about rights of women with disabilities and our future cooperation with these organizations.
Today there will be program on republic channel about my art activities. My family and friends are looking forward for it.
Kassiyet (Leadership Development Course 2009)
Posted by jicafriends at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2010
Only 13 Agencies Provide Job Opportunities For The Disabled-Malaysia
The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.
KUALA LUMPUR, March 4 (Bernama) -- Only 13 agencies adhered to the objective of providing one per cent employment opportunity for the disabled in the public sector, Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun said Thursday.
She said many other agencies failed to achieve the objective, despite various awareness campaigns to create job opportunities for the disabled.
"This indicates the need to promote the objective as we tend to forget that the disabled also have a right to employment, as stipulated under Section 29 of the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008," she said after opening a seminar on employment for the disabled here.
She said tax incentives had also been introduced to encourage private sector employers to hire disabled workers, especially those with special talents and skills.
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=479747
Posted by jicafriends at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2010
U.N. to safeguard Haitian disabled rights
The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.
Share PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 5 (UPI) --
A group of U.N. experts will look into the plight of Haitians with disabilities, disproportionately affected by January's earthquake, the United Nations said.
The announcement comes after a group of U.N. human-rights experts last month urged that the needs of Haiti's disabled population be included in the relief, recovery and reconstruction processes after the 7-magnitude earthquake, the non-government organization said Friday in a release.
The group also will look into the situation of people with disabilities in other countries affected by natural disasters, including Chile, which was struck by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake last weekend.
The decision to create the working group was made by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities during its recent meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, officials said.
Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met Friday with Chilean President Michele Bachelet and President-elect Sebastian Pinera as part of a two-day visit to see the earthquake damage in Chile and assess how the United Nations can help.
© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.
Posted by jicafriends at 03:21 PM | Comments (0)
Report from Carlos - Chile
Dear friends,
I am so sorry to send this paper in spanish, but I did not have time yet to transate it. we must insist that aid and disaster relief
have to be inclusive, people with disabilities have human rights to.
Plan de reconstruccion inclusiva para Chile [ PDF file ]
Carlos Kaiser Mansilla
Posted by jicafriends at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2010
Report from Kassiyet-Kazakhstan
Dear jicafriends,
I'd like to inform you about first steps of implementing project "Join and enjoy"(Barrier-free tourism in Kazakhstan). I called the project in Russian "Open the way".
We started to work with volunteers, we have just one volunteers' centre in Almaty. It is recruiting for us volunteers to build a team by mailing list. There are some articles in newspapers about "Open the way".
We started to talk with Committee of Asian Winter Games. We'd like to train them how to work with tourists with disabilities. Now I'm collecting the information about barrier-free tourism for lectures.
Everything is going by plan. But, unfortunately, I don't know where to raise finance. There are some social foundations, but they stopped their activity temporarily because of crisis. But I do hope to get it.
Kasia
Leadership Development Course 2009
Posted by jicafriends at 08:25 PM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2010
Report from Nyunt Nyunt - Myanmar
On 22nd February we had an opportunity to visit Vocational Training School for the Adult Disabled, supervised by Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.
Ms. Nyunt Nyunt Win, a former participant of Leaders’ Course 2000, and Deputy Principal of the school gave us a warm welcome at the guest room.
There are only two vocational training schools for persons with disabilities in Myanmar including this training school. Six training courses such as electronic engineering（TV, radio and DVD player repairing,）tailoring, silk screen printing, photography, hair dressing and basic computer skill are provided there for free.
Ms. Nyunt Nyunt takes responsibility for recruiting new trainees, reporting to the government, and supporting Principal. She also works as an instructor for the photograph course. She has been making her tireless efforts to improve the quality of lives of persons with disabilities in Myanmar. We could see her trainees are motivated and encouraged to learn new skills by her.
Two days later we visited JICA Myanmar Office with Ms. Nyunt Nyunt. We met Chief Representative and two Project Formulation Advisors. One of them was in charge of Health and the other person in charge of Human Development including disability issue. We exchanged opinions about the ongoing projects and current situation of persons with disabilities in Myanmar. We promised to keep in contact and work in closer cooperation with each other.
It’s also worth noting that Ms. Nyunt Nyunt belongs to Myanmar Alumni Association of JICA training course.http://www.jica.go.jp/myanmar/english/office/others/alumni.html
She has been working hard for persons with disabilities in Myanmar by cooperating with the other former participants and JICA Myanmar Office.
The secretariat of jicafriends
Posted by jicafriends at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)
New Committee to Expedite Disability Bill-Jamaica
The follwoing news reminded us of a Jamaican participant of Leadership Development Course 2009, who works for Ministry of Labour and Social Security. We are quite sure that she made, makes, and will make a great contribution in the disability field in Jamaica. The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.
KINGSTON(JIS):
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
The Ministry of Labour and Social Security says that a new committee has been named to expedite the passage of the National Disability Bill.
The committee was set up two weeks ago by the National Advisory Board on Disability, chaired by Dr. Patricia Dunwell, and comes against the background of renewed efforts by Minister of State, Hon. Andrew Gallimore, to have the proposed Bill brought before Parliament during the current legislative year.
Mr. Gallimore has portfolio responsibility for persons with disabilities in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.
The committee members are: Dr. Polly Bowes-Howell (chairman); former Senator, Floyd Morrison; Iris Soutar, executive officer of the Jamaica Association for the Deaf (JAD); and Ministry representatives Ann-Marie Dobson, Carla-Anne Harris-Roper and Collette Roberts-Risden.
According to Dr. Dunwell, the National Disability Bill is now in its ninth draft and has taken into account recommendations and suggestions from various stakeholders.
She has assured the community of persons with disabilities that the document has her full support, as well as that of Mr. Gallimore.
She said she welcomes public integration and participation of persons with disabilities into society.
In a release making the announcement, the Ministry said it notes recent comments by Mr. Morrison, regarding delays in completing the proposed legislation, and is assuring the public that seeming delays in consultation are not designed to retard the progress of the Bill, but to allow for full participation by persons with disabilities, so that the final document will genuinely reflect their views and contributions.
The Ministry said it continues to work, assiduously, to expedite this important legislation, "as the country prepares to implement its Vision 2030 National Development Plan, which is based on the principle of people at the centre of Jamaica's transformation."
Posted by jicafriends at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)
March 08, 2010
Tidings from Lilian-Chile
Dear JICA Friends:
I'm fine with my family, but was a great earthquake, with many people dead and may increase the number of deaths.
Luckily! I live in the capital and thank God it was possible to resist ....even continuous shaking, but I hope to God that this will stop at some point.
From my town "Peñalolen" we are organizing ways to help the people of southern Chile.
We would like to know if we can count on your help.
How can we turn to connect and build collaboration?
a big hug to everyone and thanks for the encouraging words.
Lilian Garrido Vasquez
Participant of Leadership Development Course 2007
Santiago de Chile
Posted by jicafriends at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)
Urgent request from Carlos-Chile
Dear friends from all over the world,
I humble need to make an important request related to the earthquake and tsunami in Chile. Is a different one, is not about any kind of resources but your expertise and knolwdge.
We are now facing as a country is the first stage: the emergency. this part is about finding people, restablish order, services and so on
but we need to rebuild a country for everyone, to re build universaly and full inclusive. we also need to help many chilean PwD's they lost even wheelchairs and other important elements.
So, we in the Universidad Austral de Chile (Austral University) are working in a full plan for the authorities, we need all support from all of you, your knwoledge, we need you to check our papers correcting adding or anything you thing may be of use. We will full disclose a new methodology we are working on called " Calculation Matrix of Social Inclusion Index " is a new tool for knowing how inclusive a project is for PwDs. Any person or institution that want to help us, please send an e- mail to:
kaiser.carlos@gmail.com or rsuaustral@uach.cl
*Working Plan*
Background.
1) Chile is facing a great earthquake of 8.8 Righter and a tsunami.
2) Communications are not in good shape.
3) People with disabilities have been ignored until now.
4) Deaf people have no access to public emergency communications and news
It is a difficult scenario but it shows we are no equals. PwDs are always last in government agenda even in disasters. The contingency plan we are creating for Chile, my country is not only meant for Chilean PwDs sake it could serve as a new standard and exigency that our community have to issue worldwide, if we have the same rights we have to be protected and attended in the same time not when everything is lost.
The following is just a measurements to be proposed to authorities.
Stage 1: Mitigation
Problems detected
Homeless persons with disabilities (1).
(1) This category refers to all people with disabilities who, along with having lost their home due to total or partial damage, their technical aids (apparatus or devices essential for daily life activities) are damaged or lost.
Proposed solutions
a) to adapt emergency housing (first stage) for PwD’s necessities to give them as much autonomy, safety and dignity as possible. Delivery must be as fast as possible.
b) Make emergency information and communications fully accessible (interpreters in sign language a first rate necessity due to the fact that 80% of deaf people are illiterate, websites of the media in formats readable for reading programs for blind and visual impaired).
c) to replace lost technical aids (wheelchairs, special lenses, rods, adapters, medicines, etc.). To this end, the National Disability Service may reallocate part of the technical aid budget favoring institutional arrangements with the mayors, governors and local authorities so they can expedite the delivery of more generic technical assistance.
d) Give attention to those needing specialized treatments (physical therapy, pharmacological, psychiatric, etc.).
The networks of universities and professional institutes are ready to support the work contained in this phase.
Stage 2: Inclusive rebuilding
Problems detected
Persons with disabilities cannot fully enjoy their human and constitutional rights due to the characteristics of the physical environment (construction, use) of the Information and Communication Technology, .
Proposed solutions
a) to Comply with the law and ordinances regarding accessibility.
b) to Use all recommendations of experts in accessibility such as Accessible City Fundation.
c) Application of the "Calculation Matrix of Social Inclusion Index" it is a new tool for knowing how inclusive a project of any kind is for PwDs' to evaluate how inclusive a physical space, a technology or procedure is.
d) Implementation Mideplan (National Ministry of Planning) power to grant or denay public funds for construction projects if the project does not meet accessibility in its design.
--
Carlos Kaiser Mansilla
JICA participant of Leaders' Course 2003
Social researcher and advicer on Disabilities Issues, Universidad Austral de Chile
Posted by jicafriends at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)
March 01, 2010
Disability groups find Pranab's budget heartening-India
We found the name of Mr.Javed Abidi, the former participant of Leaders' Course 1995 in the following information. It was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.
Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, February 26, 2010
First Published: 22:05 IST(26/2/2010)
Last Updated: 22:06 IST(26/2/2010)
Disability groups cheered up when a hike in investment in disabled-friendly schemes and the setting up of the country's first sign language training institute was announced by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the general budget on Friday.
"The finance minister's announcement was very heart warming! It is a positive step and in the right direction. We welcome the increase in budget allocations," Javed Abidi, a disability rights activist told IANS.
The allocation in budget 2010-11 for disabled-friendly schemes is Rs.398 crore, a step up from previous year's spend of Rs.243.29 crore.
Investment in schemes for implementation of the Disability Act have been increased manifold to Rs.95 crore from the previous Rs.7.5 crore. The allocation for schemes for employment to disabled persons has been increased by over 50 percent to Rs.7 crore.
Abidi, who is also founder of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), an umbrella organisation for over 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working on disability issues across India, said he wished that "the budget was more," to expedite the country's 11th five-year plan assuring freely accessible infrastructure and development for disabled people under the Disability Act.
While presenting the budget, the finance minister mentioned the establishing of the country's first sign language institute, which has been one of the three major demands of the disability rights activists.
"The allocation will also assist in establishing an Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre for the benefit of the hearing impaired. District Disability Rehabilitation Centres are being set up in 50 additional districts along with two composite regional centres for persons with disabilities," Mukherjee said.
Taxes liabilities on those caring for disabled dependents have also been relaxed.
Direct tax deduction with respect to maintenance, including medical treatment, of a dependent who is a person with severe disability has been raised from the present limit of Rs.75,000 to Rs.100,000.
Posted by jicafriends at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)
Report on earthquake from Carlos-Chile
We would like to express our feelings of sympathy to all the victims of Chile who were badly damaged in the earthquake, occurred on February 27, 2010. We heard that more than 700 people are feared dead and many more trapped in rubble.
Mr. Carlos Kaiser, a jicafriend from Chile sent us the following email today.
Let us pray for our friends in Chile.
**************************************************************************
Dear friends,
As you all know, Chile has been devastated by a great earthquake. it's been hell on earth. Many people lost everything, thanks God the bodycount is (by now) not too high considering the power of this earthquake. We shall endure and will rebuild Chile.
Thanks for your friendship
Carlos Kaiser Mansilla former "Leaders of persons with disabilities" kenshu in 2003
****************************************************************************
Earthquake in Chile
February 27, 2010
At 3:34 am local time, today, February 27th, a devastating magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Chile, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. According to Chilean authorities, over 400 people are now known to have been killed. The earthquake also triggered a Tsunami which is right now propagating across the Pacific Ocean, due to arrive in Hawaii in hours (around 11:00 am local time). The severity of the Tsunami is still not known, but alerts are being issued across the Pacific.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/02/earthquake_in_chile.html
Posted by jicafriends at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)