INTERNATIONAL Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) falls on December 3 next week.
The theme for this year’s UN annual celebration is based on two significant words that matter a great deal to our local disabled community: Dignity and justice.
Here’s a random checklist to help us participate in making next Wednesday a truly special day.
- Sensitive terminology: Say “persons with disabilities” or “disabled persons”. The latter is based on the position taken by many international disabled activists who see themselves as people who are disabled by society because of the lack of provision of disabled-friendly facilities rather than by their medical conditions.
Never use the word “normal” when referring to yourself if you are not a disabled person. Switch to “non disabled”, instead. Ban all negative labels such as “deformed”, “crippled”, etc, from your vocabulary unless you happen to consider yourself as a perfect human creature.
- Cope vs cure: Except for those who have been disabled recently, most disabled persons are not looking for a cure to their conditions. This is because in reality there is still no cure for the majority of disabilities.
Acceptance of one’s condition is the key to positive living with disabilities. Rather than a cure, for instance, the handicapped want jobs so that they can live like anyone else.
Children with disabilities want and should be given the same right to go to the same schools as non disabled children; not “special schools”.
Please be very careful when referring to disabilities as a “tragedy” or an “unfortunate incident.” Disabled people do not feel that they are second to non disabled persons. Many of them even celebrate being disabled, which is what IDPD is all about.
It saddens me deeply when some people write to my column and claim to offer cures to the persons I write about. They miss the point of the stories I share entirely.
This column is not about cures and false mambo jumbos but about the celebration of life with disabilities and positive living.
- Be a pal to a disabled person: Befriend a disabled person today. Not only will he or she be thrilled when you approach them, the experience will enrich you too.
Don’t ask him about his disability. Save that question for later. By then, it probably won’t matter to you after all. Take him to the latest blockbuster movie or her (in wheelchair) to the dance floor.
There are other great things you can do such as help them pay their utility bills when you do yours, collect their medication and even clean their room or home periodically.
- Service providers please help! : Phone companies, how about coming up with a truly caring package for the handicapped? The non disabled are presently getting better deals than disabled subscribers. How about free calls or really low flat rates? Phones as you know for the disabled are not a luxury item but a basic necessity. They are also life savers during emergencies.
As for the Internet how about a RM1 token monthly fee? Helping the handicapped to get online will not only significantly up their chances to get educated but also find jobs that they can do at home.
Wouldn’t it be great for a change to see phone companies competing with each other to come up with the best solutions for the disabled? And when you do such a thing, please don’t see it as a charitable project but rather as part of your social responsibility to help a most disadvantaged community to catch up with the rest of society.
- Others: Banks, why don’t you start renting out at least one of the nearest car parking slot at all your entrances and reserve them for your disabled and elderly customers?
Please make it a covered facility so that you can also perform quick transactions on the site. This would be most helpful if your centres are not disabled-friendly as yet. The provision will be an ideal temporary measure as you upgrade your banks in stages to all eventually go disabled-friendly.
The UN says around 10 per cent of the world’s population, or 650 million people, live with disabilities. Eighty per cent of persons with disabilities – more than 400 million people – live in poor countries.
According to the UN, 80 per cent to 90 per cent of persons with disabilities of working age in developing countries like Malaysia are unemployed.
According to UNESCO, 90% of children with disabilities also do not attend school.
With such stark realities, it is imperative that countries the world over take three significant steps to improve the lives of disabled persons in their respective nations. They must first, sign; second, ratify and third, implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol.
To my knowledge Malaysia has to date made the first move only in this all-important pathway that stands to make a tremendous difference in the lives of all disabled Malaysians.
The End
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