Delighted to learn that the preparatory work done on behalf of UNDP Botswana has now yielded the adoption of a Persons with Disabilities Law on the occasion of Persons with Disabilities Day. As a consultant it is a delicate task to try and understand the inner workings of a country and its administration, adding international obligations and the growing practice to support changes that will have a meaningful impact on the lived experience of persons with disabilities, it appears that in the case of Botswana a good mix of national self-representation, national legal expertise and international support brought about the necessary change towards a more inclusive and accessible society.

On the occasion of International Refugee Day a guest blog on the Landmine and Cluster Munition Blog:

Disability comes in various forms – mobility, vision, hearing, sensual – and affects people of all walks of life. Refugees are no exception: on the contrary, they represent as much a kaleidoscope of society as any other realm of life. What is more: wars, armed conflict and other causes of humanitarian crisis as well as situations of risk can often lead to animpairment, including by landmines, cluster munitions or other explosive remnants of war.

Impairments and physical and social barriers combined, result indisabilities. A “Chronically normal person” is a label that can be attributed to those persons who believe that they do not have an impairment of any sort.

To continue reading.

In a NYTimes Editorial the “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign is featured with a particularly poignant text. Lawrence Downes quotes a self-advocate of Bestbuddies, John Franklin Stephens to explain why the “r-word” is unacceptable. By the way this week is “End the R Word” campaign week:

 I know people who care about language who do not see themselves as heartless and who do not see “retardation” as anything to get worked up about. To them, banishing the R-word for another clinical-sounding term is like linguistic Febreze: masking unpleasantries with cloying euphemisms.In this, as in other cases of discrimination, it’s probably best to let those affected speak for themselves.

Here is John Franklin Stephens, a man from Virginia with Down syndrome who serves as a “global messenger” for the Special Olympics. He has written op-ed articles giving lucid voice to thoughts you may never have heard before:

“The hardest thing about having an intellectual disability is the loneliness,” he once wrote in The Denver Post. “We are aware when all the rest of you stop and just look at us. We are aware when you look at us and just say, ‘unh huh,’ and then move on, talking to each other. You mean no harm, but you have no idea how alone we feel even when we are with you.”

“So, what’s wrong with ‘retard’?,” he asked. “I can only tell you what it means to me and people like me when we hear it. It means that the rest of you are excluding us from your group. We are something that is not like you and something that none of you would ever want to be. We are something outside the ‘in’ group. We are someone that is not your kind.”

A photograph of the two finance ministers of Germany and the United States of America, respectively, conferring. Mr. Schäuble of Germany has been a wheel-chair user following an assassination attempt in 1990.

The Member States of the Convention on Cluster Munitions are meeting for the third time, returning to Oslo, Norway, where the treaty was first opened for signature. Member States are rightly hailing the speed with which cluster munitions have been stigmatized.

The NYTimes online has a series on the “Realm of Senses“: it features the New York impressions and perceptions of people who have lost a sense. Pictures by Béatrice de Géa accompany the description of people like Katherine Vasquez who does not have sense in her legs and feels like “walking on clouds” when exploring the city in her wheelchair and Martin Greenberg, who is deaf-blin and “captures the city through its vibrations.”

A feature in the NYTimes about deaf people communicating while diving:

The NYTimes reports that India is discussing the constitutional recognition of the right to food. While obviously part of a political debate, which also eyes likely effects in upcoming elections, the essential question is: should there be a right, an entitlement to have access to basic food stuffs?

On July 28 2010 the United Nations’ General Assembly declared access to clean water a human right. So far, access to water has been interpreted as part of the right to food as enshrined in Article 11 of the Covenant on Economic & Social Rights, which states inter alia:

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.

The Committee charged with monitoring the implementation of the Covenant and its interpretation, in 2002 explained in great detail why water is an essential part of food, declaring:

The human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity. It is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights.

The move by the General Assembly adds to this the weight of a resolution, recognizing the importance of access to clean water on a human rights based approach.

The Boston Globe reports – ht: UN Wire – about the work of MIT doctoral candidate Amos Winter on a “leveraged freedom chair“, designed to be produced with low cost material for the otherwise hardly accessible to inaccessible surfaces in developing countries. Reminds me a little of “design for the other 90%“.

(c) Massachusetts Institute of Technology/M-Lab

(c) Massachusetts Institute of Technology/M-Lab

NYTimes columnist Judith Warner discusses the situation of persons with varying forms of depression in the United States of America. As a new  study finds that those who do get treaty do not get treated properly and many others receive no treatment at all, Warner holds: “This is the big picture of mental health care in America: not perfectly healthy people popping pills for no reason, but people with real illnesses lacking access to care; facing barriers like ignorance, stigma and high prices; or finding care that is ineffective.”

The effect of social barriers, such as stigma and ignorance cannot be overestimated. Equally, access to affordable quality health care – a human right – is fraught for many around the globe.

This is pretty neat, the United Nations Postal Administration has put out a set of stamps in the six official languages of the United Nations, one is in Braille featuring the letters “UN”, there is also one in sign-language:

The Para-Olympics are well underway, time to highlight the biography of the Executive President of Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG),Deng Pufang. His family, most obviously his father, Deng Xiaoping, were targets of Mao’s cultural revolution. The Red Guards imprisoned Deng Pufang, tortured him and threw him out of the window of a multi-story building. Deng was rushed to a hospital but was denied helped because of being the son of a capitalist. Deng is a paraplegic since, he is a high-profile advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities in China and beyond, he is the President of the Federation of Persons with Disabilities in China and Chairman of the China Welfare Fund for the Handicapped.