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May 29, 2010

Report from Carlos - Chile

Quirihue Town: first world experience of inclusive rebuilding

Dear friends, as you know many places were destroyed by the earthquake we had in Chile, one of them is Quirihue town.

Quirihue town is located about 72 km northwest of Chillan, 82 miles north of Concepción and 398 kilometers south of Santiago, in the Bío-Bío Region in the province of Ñuble.It has a 589.0 km ² territory and a population of 11 429 inhabitants.

Houses were made of a traditional spanish material called adobe, a very old technique, so more than 70% of the houses buildings were destroyed.

A group of volunteers from Maipu (part of Santiago city), started a fund raising campaing with several stpets towars start the very first inclusive rebuilding experience.

We had a night of artistic shows called “Maipu embraces Quirihue”
We called for volunteers and had several meetings.

May the 29th and 30th we will start the inclusive rebuilding process in Chile, everything starts in Quirihue tow.

Our products:
1. Emergency housing with universal accessibility.
2. Emergency relief and people with disabilities survey

Next report: the experience outcome

Posted by jicafriends at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2010

Judith Heumann to Join U.S. State Department in Fulfillment of Obama-Clinton Pledge

Judith Heumann, an international leader in the disability rights movement and a governmental representative to the USICD Board of Directors, will be joining the U.S. Department of State as their Special Advisor for International Disability Rights. This position was announced last summer, when President Obama and Secretary Clinton declared that the United States would sign the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Heumann resigned her position as Director of the Department on Disability Services for the District of Columbia, and will assume her new position at the Department of State on June 7, 2010.

“This is a significant step forward to the U.S. government’s capacity to include disability in our foreign policy. The knowledge Judy will bring to the State Department will be invaluable to international development programs, U.S. ratification of the CRPD, and our country’s approach to international engagement,” says USICD President Marca Bristo. “As longtime colleagues and friends of Judy, the USICD Board of Directors is elated with her appointment and we wish her all the best in her new role.”

Previously, Heumann was the Advisor on Disability and Development for the World Bank from 2002 to 2006, and served as President Clinton's Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services from 1993 to 2001. She was a cofounder of the World Institute on Disability in Oakland, California, and served there from 1982 to 1993. She was also a cofounder of the Berkeley Center for Independent Living, serving as their Deputy Director from 1975 to 1981.

In March 2010, prior to her appointment to the State Department, the Minnesota-based nonprofit Courage Center announced that they will grant Heumann the 2010 Medtronic National Courage Award this September. Heumann was selected for the 2010 award in acknowledgment of her lifelong advocacy on behalf of children and adults with disabilities. Heumann was the first recipient of the Henry B. Betts Award in 1990.

Maria Veronica Reina
Executive Director
Global Partnership for Disability and Development (GPDD)
Secretariat:
Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University

Posted by jicafriends at 05:29 PM | Comments (1)

May 27, 2010

Internet Accessibility Issues-Bangladesh

The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "Accessbangla."

Although there has been tremendous progress in making the internet accessible for blind people, there are several things that we, as blind computer users, can't do. I know several blind individuals who use Craig's List, Face Book, and other related sites in order to network. The one problem we have is that we can't see the authentication verification code that pops up on the monitor when we log out. As you probably know, this authentication verification code, a random list of letters and numbers that are sometimes viewed upside down, is designed to prevent hackers from emembering it, and that's why it changes with every attempt to log out.

The problem is that a blind person can't verify it because the speech software can't translate it. A sighted person has to be on hand at all times to dictate every new authentication verification code that comes up on the monitor in order for a blind person to verify it. Under these circumstances, how do the blind manage to maneuver through these sites where you have to post information by logging in and out? I would like to be able to post ads on Craig's List without having a sighted person come here every time I log out, just so that he can read an authentication verification code that changes on the fly and is not understood by speech software. Do any of you have any solutions, and if you are a blind user, how do you log out?

Generally speaking, there have been attempts made by some web site designers to include fewer graphics on their sites, making it a lot easier for the blind user to read them. More often than not, speech software has difficulty reading a web site if it has too many pictures on it. I know that in the world of vision, people like to look at the pretty designs on a web site, because it looks attractive. No matter how nice the site looks, the design doesn't help the blind. Most, if not all, speech programs stop reading when they come across a picture. If the picture is too large, Jaws will be interrupted while reading the important material.

I don't think that legislation is necessary, because most of us don't like the government telling private industry what to do, so I feel we should just have more faith that web site designers will cut back on all the graphics in order for everyone to read what's on the site.

Posted by jicafriends at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2010

The Final Review on the 2nd AP Decade

The Final Review
on ‘the 2nd Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons 2003-2012’
to be held in Korea in 2012

On May 19, 2010, the last day of the 66th Commission session, ESCAP adopted the resolution, sponsored by 11 countries in the Asia Pacific Region that the High Level intergovernmental Meeting on the final review of Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons 2003-2012 will be held in the Republic of Korea in 2012. HLM will evaluate what the AP Region has achieved and what gaps are remained during the 2nd decade, which is expected to contain ways forward post 2012, in ensuring that persons with disabilities exercise and enjoy their rights in all aspects of their lives. RI World Congress and APDF General Assembly will be held in conjunction with the ESCAP HLM.

All DPOs need to develop collaborative work not only between DPOs but also with governments and all stakeholders for the next two years preparation work. This will be another opportunity for the disability community in the region to work together to bring about real changes into the lives of persons with disabilities.

The Steering Group (facilitated by KSRPD) composed of academics, DPOs and governmental officers have been working on reviewing the 2nd decade and thinking ahead for post 2012, since October 2009.

Sang-Chul Lee (President of KSRPD)
& Il-Yung Lee (RI Vice President-AP Region)

Posted by jicafriends at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2010

Visually Impaired Call for More Gov't Support-Rwanda

The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.

5 May 2010

Kigali — Visually impaired people under their umbrella organization, the Rwanda Union for the Blind (RUB), have called on the government to provide them with more education facilities in order to improve their lives.
Speaking during conference organised by the Indian based group, Rwanda Renaissance, and Kigali City Council, the Executive Secretary of RUB, Donatilla Kanimba, said that the visually impaired lack education because there aren't enough schools to cater for their needs.
"There are few schools that can accept visually impaired people, and this leads them to live in isolation and deep poverty because they lack education," said Kanimba.
"There's need to train visually impaired people or provide them with necessary support so that they live a productive life," she added.
Kanimba said that there is only one training centre situated in Masaka Sector, Kicukiro District and that trains visually impaired people in farming, adding that there is need to expand its capacity by adding other courses.
The meeting that attracted various institutions and NGOs discussed the prospectus of setting up a "white cane" workshop in Rwanda.
Addressing the conference, the chairman of Rwanda Renaissance, Clarence Fernandes, said that in collaboration with the National Association for the Blind of India, they are planning to set up the workshop in Rwanda which will employ visually impaired people and pass on skills.
A white cane is a mobility and safety tool needed by the vulnerable group of people as it reflects light in the dark thus making it safer for the user.
"If we start this project, the visually impaired people will be able to learn more skills and Rwanda will be able to export white canes to other countries in the region," said Fernandes.
According to RUB, one white cane costs Rwf 20,000.
According to a 2002 population census, there are over 13,000 visually impaired people across the country.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201005050064.html

Posted by jicafriends at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2010

Can Grade Two Braille Spell Trouble?-Bangladesh

The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "accessbangla."

When Braille is taught, it is usually taught in steps. First, there is "Grade One" Braille, which consists of the entire Braille alphabet and some punctuation. As a Braille user becomes more advanced and efficient with the language, he or she is taught "Grade Two" Braille.

Grade Two Braille offers a series of contractions, which most people would call short-hand. I suppose that the inventor of Braille decided to designate a series of words as abbreviations and then taught to the blind. For example, each letter of the alphabet in Grade Two Braille, accept for the letters A, I, and O, represents a whole word. The letter B is written as "But", the letter C is written as "Can", etc. To get to the point of this article, I will now give you a letter that stands for a bigger word.

The letter K in Grade Two Braille means the word "Knowledge." Assuming that most blind children who learn Braille are either in first or second grade, many may be learning these Grade Two contractions before they actually learn how to spell the actual real word as sighted children do. Did you know how to spell knowledge when you were 6 years old? If you learned Braille at age 6, and learned how to write the word knowledge by simply writing the letter K, chances are you'd never have to know how to spell knowledge, unless you took up typing or word processing and needed to learn that word.

Grade Two Braille also offers different symbols for other words, such as "And", "The" and "Of". Am I suggesting that little children didn't know how to spell these words before learning these Braille contractions? No, but I actually do know a 35-year-old Braille reader who spells the word "With" as "Width." When I saw that in some of her correspondence recently, I couldn't help think about the possibility that learning Braille contractions at a very young age may exempt some Braille users from ever having to learn the real spellings.

Here is one more example of my concern. Another feature in Grade Two Braille is abbreviated contractions. For example, the word "Could" is taught as "CD", the word "good" is taught as "GD", and the word "Your"is taught as "YR." One day, a young blind boy was in a spelling class. He was about 8 years old, and a very good Braille reader. The teacher asked him how to spell "Good", and he answered, "GD." I'm sure you can imagine the look on the teacher's face when he spelled it that way. Yet, to the little boy's credit, he probably never knew how the word "Good" was really spelled because he learned the Grade Two contraction in first grade, while all sighted first graders would have to learn the real spelling.

For my blind readers, I ask you, am I making too much out of this?
For my sighted readers, I have a suggestion. If you know a young blind child who's learning Braille, it may not be a bad idea for you to make sure that he or she learns the real spellings of Grade Two Braille contractions, if, for no other reason, to avoid embarrassment as he or she gets older. By the way, I have a confession to make. When I learned Braille at 8 years old, I did not know how to spell knowledge until after I learned the Braille contraction for that word.

Posted by jicafriends at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)

Number of Autism patients increasing-Kuwait

The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.

KUWAIT: Director of disabled-care department in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor Khaled Al-Mahdi affirmed the increasing toll of Autism patients and the need for special care and attention.
Al-Mahdi said on the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day organized by the disabled-care department yesterday the growing proportion of male autism patients are more than females and it is needed to set up a special wing for patients with autism at the care departments.
He pointed out the importance of the role provided by autism and disability patient centers, namely Kuwait Center for Autism (KCA). The reason for the delay to celebrate World Autism Awareness Day endorsed by UN in April 2 is to work on good preparation for celebration, he explained.
Al-Mahdi hoped for all people working to raise the level of performance in providing services which benefit the disabled, and praised the role of anyone who seeks to meet the needs of people with disability, especially that autism patients suffer from fragmentation and isolation, and lack of integration with the community. The celebration included a screening of a documentary about autism and poems.

http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTM2NzI5ODAwOA

Posted by jicafriends at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)