THE United Nations declared Dec 3 as International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD). This day has been observed annually since 1992 to bring to attention disability issues and encourage action from all sectors in the mainstreaming of persons with disabilities.
The theme for 2018 is ‘Empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality’.
The Oxford Living Dictionaries defines ‘empower’ as to ‘make someone stronger and more confident, especially in confronting their life and claiming their rights’ .
According to the United Nations, this theme focuses on the empowering of persons with disabilities for the inclusive, equitable, and sustainable development as envisaged in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which pledges to ‘leave no one behind’.
This call is timely seeing that persons with disabilities are among the most marginalised groups in society, according the World Health Organisation (WHO). Studies have also shown that empowered persons with disabilities can participate and contribute meaningfully in the development of society instead of being passive recipients.
WHO compiled a list of 10 facts on disability and recommendations on ways to advance inclusion and accessibility. Among others, persons with disabilities often do not receive needed healthcare, are more likely to be unemployed, and vulnerable to poverty. Children with disabilities are also less likely to attend school as compared to non-disabled children.
Society prevalently sees persons with disabilities as not productive and incapable of independence. Physical, sensory, or intellectual deficits of the individuals are regarded as the cause of the problems they face. This perception is also programmed into the minds of persons with disabilities, who in turn accept it as fate in life and that nothing can be done to change the situation.
WHO states that disability is now understood as a human rights issue. People are disabled by society in the form of attitudinal and environmental barriers rather than by their impairments. These barriers are mostly manmade and can be eliminated with the involvement of all stakeholders working together, namely the government, non-governmental organisations, professionals, persons with disabilities, and their families.
Dr Kenji Kuno, an expert on disability with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), noted that “there are not many disabled people who are fully aware of, and have a strong sense of human rights”.
He added, “Even some disabled leaders and activists promote charity interventions, although they themselves choose the language of ‘rights’.”
What are those rights? Persons with disabilities have the same rights to participate in society on an equal basis with others. This means that if a person without disabilities can go to school to get an education, persons with disabilities should be able to get an equal quality of education without any hindrance.
This equality applies to all aspects of civil, social, economic, cultural and political processes. In the real world, these rights are often curtailed by prejudice, discrimination, and general apathy in the provision of facilities and services to accommodate the needs of persons with disabilities.
Education is crucial in the path leading to empowerment. Education is the key to access information to broaden the mind and widen perspectives. Academic qualifications provide knowledge and skills that can lead to employment and self-sufficiency.
However, that alone is not enough. A deeper understanding of the meaning and causes of disability can unshackle the mindset of seeing impairments as burdens and impediments. A solid grasp of the Social Model of Disability, which asserts that disability is the result of barriers that hinder participation in society is useful towards that objective.
As far as I am aware, the only programme that facilitates the understanding of this model in Malaysia is Disability Equality Training (DET). There is an urgent need to expand this programme to reach out to more persons with disabilities.
Towards that end, Dr Kuno has been promoting the empowerment of persons with disabilities in Asia Pacific, Africa, and Latin America for the past decade and a half. The programmes are implemented under the auspices of JICA and the government of the respective countries.
All in, more than 300 persons with disabilities have been trained to become DET facilitators, who in turn conduct workshops to promote the understanding of disability and encourage proactive actions to make positive changes in policies and practices.
I am proud to say that I am a beneficiary of the programme. For one who had previously accepted it as fate, DET has empowered me by giving me the confidence, knowledge, and skills to advocate for disability rights.
I was able to put into practise what I have learnt to influence changes in policies, procedures, and practices in some major organisations in the country. All in, I have conducted over 250 workshops for more than 8,000 participants to become agents of change.
The theme for IDPD 2018 also calls for the development of a more accessible and inclusive urban environment, where more than half of the world’s population currently lives. This figure will rise to 6.5 billion by 2050 in a report published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (Desa), which predicted 15 per cent of them will be persons with disabilities.
The report also remarked that urban environments, “infrastructures, facilities and services, depending on how they are planned or built can impede or enable access, participation and inclusion of members of society” .
Evidence has revealed that widespread lack of accessibility to the environments, from roads to housing, can contribute greatly to the disadvantage and marginalisation faced by persons with disabilities.
Empowerment can only work when coupled with enablement. In this aspect, governments and professionals have a major role to play by drawing up effective legislation and setting up policies in ensuring the orderly development of infrastructure and support services. This must be in close consultation with all stakeholders in line with the recommendation of the various international frameworks.
The IDPD is an important reminder to ensure disability issues get the attention they deserve because these issues are usually assigned the lowest priorities in planning and development. Here is hoping that with the commemoration of IDPD each year, society will inch closer to being fully inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities.