Latin American Meeting in Chile Adopts Human Rights Plan
The Santiago Manifesto: to build accessible democracy in Ouramérica
On March 18, 19 and 20, 2001, Santiago de Chile was a warm and friendly stage for a meeting of Latin American leaders with disabilities trying to broaden knowledge and exchange experiences so as to be more effective within our countries and improve living conditions for millions of people with disabilities living in Ouramérica.
During the meeting, we agreed that it is necessary for all our countries to deepen their awareness of the realities of the lives of people with disabilities. Census studies, surveys, and research in every field are absolutely necessary to rigorously and objectively measure a reality that is not only characterized by social segregation, but is also dominated by vagueness. This vagueness prevents a full comprehension of the existing problems through precise figures.
In spite of this void, if we use World Health Organization (WHO) data, it is estimated that at least 10% of the general population has some certain disability. This percentage indicates that about 40 million of us, people with a disability, live in the Latin American and Caribbean Region.
From the situation reports received this week from both male and female participants at the Training Workshop for Leaders with Disabilities, sponsored and organized by the InterAmerican Institute on Disability (IID), it is understood that the prevalent situation in Ouramérica is that of inaccessibility of physical and architectural spaces, of information and communication, of transportation, employment, education, health services, recreation and sports, and other different spheres of social life.
From the Human Rights perspective, society is marked by persistent violations against these rights in the field of disabilities, evident in economic, social and cultural aspects and throughout both civil and political society. Disparagement, segregation, discrimination, poverty and misery are ongoing factors in the lives of people with disabilities.
Instruments for protecting Human Rights of people with disabilities, both national and international are either not complied with, or complied with in the shallowest of ways, or in ways they can be withdrawn. Private charity and public aid have not and will not be able to significantly reduce the prevailing problems; in fact, in many a case, they have evolved into fetters to the active leadership by people with disabilities in their efforts to eliminate their enduring problems.
This situation, as described here, brings us to a conclusion that is as harsh as it is challenging: democracy in Ouramérica is impossible to access for a majority of people with disabilities.
At the outset of the XXI Century, people with disabilities must dearly hold on to the reins that guide our destinies. We must work and struggle so that the equal opportunity and participation principles, and that of personal autonomy broaden both in society and in our daily lives.
We are fully convinced that a significant improvement in the living conditions of people with disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean cannot be achieved without a most active and leading participation by a united front of existing organizations in our civil societies, by an umbrella organization of all organizations representing the various disabilities, by a fraternal and open forum for debate - as we have done this week in Chile - of people from different parts of the American continents and with the most diverse disabilities.
Considering the tests and challenges, all participants in the Training Workshop for Latin-American Leaders with Disabilities agreed to promote the following ideas and initiatives:
First. We understand it is fundamental that we advance the Human Rights and the active participation and representation of peoples with disabilities, develop them in the broadest of ways so as to generate, strengthen and consolidate the social movement of people with disabilities in Ouramérica. This will help us develop more and efficient political influence on the policies of individual countries.
Second. A broad, flexible, and inclusive initiative, embracing all disabilities and regional and international organizations representing them is necessary. To develop a common gateway project is basic. Based on this fact, we decided to create an ongoing mechanism for reflection and action, the Foro Latinoamericano y de El Caribe por los Derechos Humanos de las Personas con Discapacidad (Latin American and Caribbean Forum for the Human Rights of Peoples with Disabilities).
Three. So as to immediately implement these pivotal initiatives; we commit ourselves to carry out the following projects:
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Receiving and Forwarding of Relevant Documents. The Interamerican Institute on Disability will receive documents related to the participation by people with disabilities and their human rights sent by people and organizations. These documents, after a careful selection, will be shared firstly, through the Internet, with people and organizations of the disability sector in Latin America and the Caribbean as broadly as possible.
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Online Human Rights Course. Furthering this initial effort to make Human Rights and participation documents known, we will work to develop an online course on Human Rights of people with disabilities. We will work in systematizing materials, building a completely accessible digest and a sort of manual or, in other words, a "standard" to the doctrine of Human Rights in our subcontinent.
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Fashioning of a new term to replace that of Disability and a new logo to represent all people with some kind of limitation: physical, psychical or sensory. Making the proposal by people with hearing and visual limitations that attended the workshop ours, the term Disability is put on the table because it is a term that persists in the idea of something being lost, a lacking of sorts. Therefore, what is being proposed that first PEOPLE are mentioned, and then what is to be attached is the difference that channels the actions taken to equalize opportunities within the context of respect and tolerance, i.e., directly alluding to physical, psychical or sensory limitations. Furthering the idea, it is proposed that the international logo being used is replaced by one that integrates all people with some kind of limitations.
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North-South America Meeting to formally establish the FORO LATINOAMERICANO. We will work intensively in a large project to create a meeting of representatives from all organizations of people with disabilities within civil society in all Latin American and Caribbean countries. We will utilize this meeting to organize ourselves as a permanent forum to act as the common facilitator to the efforts and initiatives from national, regional and international organizations.
It is our will and purpose that regional and international organizations, and representatives from the various disabilities participate in this initiative as co-sponsors and unified organizers.
We must seize the moment, this day, this hour, for transformation: it is the time for the political, social, economic and cultural advancement of people with disabilities. It is the time for active and organized participation. It is the time to set aloft the banners of Human Rights for people with disabilities.
It is the time to start building accessible democracy in Ouramérica!
Santiago de Chile, March 20, 2001
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