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Table of Contents for Issue no. 6 January-February 2001

Access and Technology

Prof. Kate Seelman Reviews Recent Accomplishments of U.S. National Institute on Disability & Rehabilitation Research
Interview by Kathy Martinez (kathy@wid.org)
Prof. Kate Seelman, who served as the Director of NIDRR during the Clinton administration, has accepted a post with the University of Pittsburgh, where she will continue her research and teaching in disability and rehabilitation studies . . .

Brazil: Accessibility Progress in the "Rio City Project"
By Verônica de Lima Camisão Costa (vcamisao@openlink.com.br)
Brazil, like other Latin America countries, only recently began giving serious attention to the process of accessibility to the environment and transportation aimed at the needs of the population as a whole . . .

Colombia Launches a Museum where Everyone Sees
In recent years, museums around the world have been extending their educational missions, adopting strategies to attract new publics . . .

Progress in Access & Technology in Brazil
Translated from Superação
On December 18, 2000 the Center of Independent Living of Rio de Janeiro presented to the City Hall of Rio de Janeiro the Guide to Full Citizenship: Accessibility in Downtown Rio de Janeiro . . .

The Curitiba Transport System in Brazil: An Example of Universal Design within Developing Economies
By Verônica de Lima Camisão Costa (vcamisao@openlink.com.br)
In the area of accessible transportation, we have the example of Curitiba, with approximately two million people . . .

Access and Technology briefly
European Parliament Approves Accessible Buses Directive, Society for Accessible Travel & Hospitality, European Magazine on Design for All, and more . . .

Arts and Media

The Power of Symbols and Images: After Long Battle, Statue Dedicated of FDR in a Wheelchair, Washington, D.C.
By Barbara Duncan (bjdnycla@aol.com)
A crowd turned out in bone-chilling weather on December 10 to celebrate former U.S. President Clinton's symbolic goodbye to the disability community-the unveiling of a statue depicting President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in his wheelchair . . .

Series on Disability Activism in Russia (in five parts)
» Moscow & Russian Press Intrigued by Disabled Demonstrators
During December and January demonstrations in major Russian cities were organized by local disability rights groups . . .

» A Million Problems for A Million People
By Nina Kostretsova
Those who passed by Pushkin Square yesterday saw what at first seemed like a familiar sight - demonstrators dressed as Santa Clauses and Snowmaidens, wearing fur coats and hats, just as they should. But one Santa was in a wheelchair, and one was an amputee . . .

» Disabled Muscovites Call for Normalized Lives
By Valeria Korchagina
A couple dozen disabled people, many in wheelchairs, went to City Hall on Thursday to demand better protection of their rights . . .

» How Disabled Activists got in People's Way (and made them stop and think)
By Valery Paniushkin
Yesterday, as part of the "Accessible City" initiative, disabled activists got in people's way at the Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station . . .

» Overcoming Barriers - We are all equal, but it's more difficult for some
Yesterday, a group of young disabled activists from the Perspektiva organization gathered on Pushkin Square in the Center of Moscow. Their goal was to make the city authorities realize that getting around Moscow is nearly impossible for someone in a wheelchair . . .

Gideon's Crossing: A Television Program Addressing Cochlear Implants with Comments from the National Association of the Deaf
By Barbara Kolucki (bakoluck@aol.com)
On Monday, January 29, 2001, Gideon's Crossing, a weekly U.S. television program on ABC, included a segment about a deaf teenage girl and her desire to have a cochlear implant . . .

International Short Film Festival on Disability, Munich, November 2001
Since 1995, the German-based organization called the Association of Disabled People in the Media has organized international festivals on short films about disability issues and/or disabled persons . . .

The MUSICOR: Making Music Comfortable
By Jane Vincent (jane@wid.org)
Mention repetitive strain injury to most people these days, and the assumption tends to be that the injury's cause is improper computer use. However . . .

Role Models for the 21st Century: Highlights of Year 2000 Paralympics
By Barbara Duncan (bjdnycla@aol.com)
On the heels of its highly successful international broadcasts last October of the Sydney Paralympics on both television and via streaming video on the web, We Media produced a two-hour summary of highlights . . .

Children and Youth

The Importance of Teaching Children to Celebrate and Value Diversity
By Barbara Kolucki (bakoluck@aol.com)
Perhaps it will never be part of our humanity in this world to value each and every human being, regardless of gender, age, color, nationality, disability or religion . . .

A "Cover Girl" with Down Syndrome
By Barbara Kolucki (bakoluck@aol.com)
The Editor of BabyTalkMagazine, Susan Kane, tells the story of a mother, Martha Beck, who wrote about her son with Down Syndrome . . .

Employment

Independent Living Center Helps Job-Seekers "Dress for Success" in Dallas, Texas
by Charlotte Stewart, REACH of Dallas Resource Center on Independent Living 2000, provided by ILRU
REACH of Dallas is a project of REACH Inc., a community-based North Texas nonprofit corporation with the mission of providing services to people with disabilities and education to the community . . .

AgrAbility Programs Help Disabled Agricultural Workers Remain in their Fields
Article provided by Laurel Richards (lrichards@bcm.tmc.edu)
According to the Breaking New Ground (BNG) Resource Center, a primary source for information and resources on rehabilitation technology for disabled persons working in agriculture, over three million Americans earn their livings in agriculture, and for most of them, the work is not just their livelihood, it is their way of life . . .

Disability Employment Project Established for Yorkshire Area, U.K.
News provided by Laurel Richards (lrichards@bcm.tmc.edu)
A new project which aims to find employment for 160 people who have disabilities and/or long_term health problems in Doncaster was launched in September 2000 . . .

The Ticket to Work Incentive Improvement Act of 1999: The United States' New Employment Program
By Lex Frieden (lfrieden@bcm.tmc.edu)
On December 15, 2000, I had the honor of being the keynote speaker at a conference sponsored by the U.S. Social Security Administration and the National Academy of Social Insurance in Washington, D.C. . . .

European Commission Official Addresses Employment Opportunities For Disabled Persons before the European Disability Forum
Article provided by Laurel Richards (lrichards@bcm.tmc.edu)
The text of a speech delivered to the European Disability Forum in Crete in September 2000 by Anna Diamantopoulou, Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission . . .

New Report Introduced to Increase the Employment of Minnesotans With Disabilities
In November 2000, the Disability Institute, in cooperation with the Institute on Community Integration at the University of Minnesota and Courage Center, introduced a new report, "Better Jobs, Brighter Futures: Views and Opinions of People with Disabilities and Employers." . . .

El Salvador Passes Law Requring Employmnet of Disabled Persons
By Teresa Cubias, San Salvador El Diario de Hoy, 4 Dec, UN Wire translation
El Salvador has passed a law that will require businesses by May to employ one disabled person for every 25 workers . . .

Employment briefly
University of York Requests Employment & Disability Research from Selected Countries . . .

Governance and Legislation

"Get Out the Vote" Efforts of the U.S. Disability Rights Movement: Interview with Judy Heumann, Assistant Secretary for Education
Interview by Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
This year's focus on "getting out the vote" is "a natural evolution" of the disability rights movement, said Judith E. Heumann, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, in an October 2000 interview . . .

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter Critiques Florida Election Practices
By Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
The United States is often looked to as a model of democracy by the rest of the world. But the 2000 presidential debacle has shed light on shoddy election practices . . .

Citizens with Disabilities Observe Ghana's National Elections - Individuals with visual, hearing and mobility impairments visit more than 300 voting stations in 4 regions
Seventy-seven Ghanaian citizens with disabilities were trained and recruited as fully credentialed election observers during the nation's Presidential and Parliamentary elections of December 7, 2000 . . .

Interview with Charlotte McClain, Commissioner, South African Human Rights Commission
Interview by Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
South Africa recently adopted Act No. 4, 2000 (Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, 2000). What is your opinion about its potential effectiveness for protecting the human rights of disabled people? . . .

Wheelchair User Elected to U.S. Congress
By Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
Jim Langevin, a new Congressman from the state of Rhode Island, uses a wheelchair . . .

Challenges in the Comparative Study of Disability Politics
By Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
People with disabilities hold elected and appointed offices in many nations around the world. Disabled people are members of parliaments and high-level officials in executive branches. They use these positions to influence policy and work hard to improve the quality of life for other disabled people . . .

Moving legislation into action: the examples of India & South Africa
By Lucy Wong-Hernandez, Executive Director, Disabled Peoples International (lucywdpiny@aol.com)
Many countries have developed new policies to be more inclusive and create a society where people with disabilities are taken into consideration like all other citizens . . .

UK Considers New and Inclusive Special Education Bill
By Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
In a move to further integrate children with disabilities into mainstream school, Great Britain's House of Lords is debating a bill that would, according to the Alliance for Inclusive Education, "put a new duty on schools and Local Education Authorities to plan for increasing accessibility and inclusion" . . .

Independent Living

Disabled People in Guatemala: building independence from high tech to basketball
By Amy Kunz
Agencies, NGOs and organizations committed to strengthening civil society and helping the displaced and disadvantaged abound in Guatemala . . .

Independent Living and Personal Assistant Services in Finland
Summary of a paper by Kalle Könkkölä and Gunilla Sjörvall
The Threshhold, an organization founded in 1973, selected the improvement of the educational level of people with disabilities as its first main issue since the movement would benefit if academically qualified people acted as advocates . . .

Request for information from Northern Ireland
I wonder if anybody would care to comment on what to me is a rather surprising finding in my current research into contemporary voluntary action around disability . . .

Independent Living briefly
Opportunity to Participate in On-line Sympoisum on Best Practices in Independent Living . . .

International News and Views

International Conferences 2000-2001
Conference on the Human Genome and the Science, Business, Law & Ethics of Engineering Human Life, European Union Conference on "Equal Opportunities in the Market for Deaf & Hard of Hearing People," RESNA 2001 Conference, and more . . .

New Freedom Initiative for People with Disabilities
By U.S. President George Bush
The story of America, it has often been said, is the story of the ever-widening circle of inclusion. Welcoming immigrants. Freeing slaves. Women winning the right to vote. Ending segregation. That circle was widened ten years ago, when Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act . . .

India: Disability Advocates Win the Right to be Counted
By National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People
We have statistics for almost anything, from the animals to rare species to vegetarians and non-vegetarians, etc., etc. India boasts of being one of the few countries that conducts Census religiously every ten years. The irony is that inspite of this machinery in place, we do not have authentic statistics on the population of disabled people in our country . . .

International Conferences (with accompanying editorial on CBR)
» International Conference of the Dutch Coalition on Disability and Development Planned for September 2001
Every day people are born disabled or become disabled due to diseases, accidents and situations of war. The adverse results of disability fall most heavily on people in the poorest sections of society . . .

» USCIR New Seminar Series on Disability Topics
You are invited to attend a Seminar on "Ongoing Disability Initiatives in the Americas" . . .

» 15th Training Course on Planning and Management of CBR Programs
Cost-effective CBR Programs are rarely found. . . . [an] alternative is comprehensive, cross-disability CBR programs with full time local staff and a formal management structure, which however makes use of all the available human, material and infrastructure resources . . .

» Editorial: Community Based Rehabilitation: What is it?
By Geert Vanneste
Most 'CBR programs' implemented up to now do not result from the inventiveness, creativity and hard work of the local people themselves. They are products of foreign policy and interest, with inputs of foreign manpower and money . . .

Hoøa Nhaäp (Integration) - Newsletter N.33, Dec. 2000 - Jan. 2001 (Vietnam)
DYA'S PETITION TO THE GOVERNMENT during the meeting of about 3.000 disabled people from all parts of the country to celebrate the International Day of the Disabled . . .

Deaf South Asians Signing and Living: Book Reviews
By M. Miles (m99miles@hotmail.com)
The future of Deaf cultures in Western Europe and North America may increasingly be affected by cochlear implants, by the dispersal of deaf children to the hearing mainstream, and by physical or psychological infertility reducing the general population. During the present century, the centre of gravity of the Deaf world can be expected to shift toward the rapidly growing peoples of mainland East Asia and South Asia . . .

Georgia Republic Disability Organization Asks for International Assistance
Disabled people and Veterans Assistance and Employment Union as an independent non-governmental organization exists in Tbilisi, Georgia (former Soviet Republic) since 1995. . . . Our mission is to promote open society building in Georgia, support peaceful initiatives by creation of disabled and veterans' civic institutions and their integration into international democratic systems . . .

The IDB initiative on Disability and Development
The Inter-American Development Bank is organizing a seminar entitled, Dialogue on Development and Inclusion: Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities . . .

Societal Barriers Facing Disabled Japanse May Prove Most Formidable
By Taiga Uranaka, Japan Times staff writer
As deputy chief of the Japanese delegation at the Sydney Paralympic Games this summer, Tsunenobu Wakana was impressed with the handicapped-friendly facilities and transportation system . . .

Nordic Ministers for Development Cooperation Issue Communique on Inclusion of Disability Aspects "Towards inclusion of disability aspectsin international development co-operation"
The Ministers for Development Cooperation from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden met with NGO representatives from the Nordic countries, recipient countries and international organizations in Copenhagen on 13-14 November 2000 at the Nordic Conference on Disability and Development Cooperation to discuss ways and means of including the disability aspect in international development cooperation . . .

New Zealand Disability Activist Wins Human Rights Award
By Robyn Hunt (robyn@iecho.co.nz)
New Zealand disability activist Wendi Wicks received an award for her human rights work at a national ceremony held on December 10, 2000. Wendi is a founding member of the Human Rights Network of Aotearoa-New Zealand . . .

Situation of Disabled Romanians Reported to European Parliament Group
Report provided by Jerome Mindes (jerrymindes@juno.com)
Richard Howitt MEP welcomed two special key speakers from Romania who would give information about the situation faced by disabled people in their country, beginning with Liala Onu, Romanian National League of Organisations of Persons with Mental Handicap . . .

Deaf Volunteers for the Deaf Developing World
By M. Miles (m99miles@hotmail.com)
The Centre for Deaf Studies, University of Bristol, initiated a new dialogue in November 2000 by bringing together people active in Deaf Studies and people involved in disability-related work in developing countries, for a conference on Deafness and Development . . .

Disability and the Development Aid Game : Dutch and Flemish Regrouping
By M. Miles (m99miles@hotmail.com)
The Dutch Coalition on Disability & Development (DCDD) was launched in June 2000, with some inspiration from the example of its Flemish counterpart PHOS . . .

Resources

New, Improved "Quotes of the Day"

Women

Whirlwind Women's Wheelchair Building Project in Uganda: Creating Employment Opportunities for Women with Disabilities
Since 1997, Whirlwind Women, a women's wheelchair-building project based at the San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California, U.S.A. has been collaborating with disabled Ugandan women to found an independent women-run wheelchair production workshop manufacturing the Whirlwind wheelchair . . .

Ethiopian Women Rally
By Abebe Andualem, The Associated Press
Singing and waving banners, Ethiopian women culminated a week of protests against rising domestic violence at a rally Saturday in the capital's Meskel Square . . .

Women briefly
European Union Considers Ban on Aid to States that Allow Female Circumcision, No Room for Abused Disabled Women in U.S. Shelters, New U.K. & U.S. Books on Women And Girls with Disabilities in Literature . . .

The Disability Buzz

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