Disability Rights Activists from Cyprus explore Chicago scene
By Mike Ervin (Mervin4241@aol.com)
Recently, a delegation of disability rights activists from the island of Cyprus came to Chicago to exchange ideas and solutions with local activists.
I interviewed two of them for a sense what life is like for people with disabilities there and what the advocacy priorities have been. Elise Torossian is a founder of the Advocacy Group for the Mentally Ill. She has no disability but describes herself as "a person who has been involved with charity organizations" for 25 years. Mustafa Celik is the head of the service and advocacy organization the North Cyprus Orthopedic Association and a founder of the Turkish- Cypriot wheelchair basketball association. He is a paraplegic because of a car accident when he was 17 and uses a manual wheelchair.
Background
First, some background: Cyprus is in the Mediterranean sea, south of Turkey. The southern two-thirds of the island is referred to as the Greek side, with a population of about 837,000. The northern third is referred to as the Turkish side, with a population of about 182,000. Though Cyprus gained independence from the British Empire in 1960, an attempt by the Greek majority in 1974 to take governmental control of the whole island was met with Turkish military resistance. That's when the de facto division occurred. In 1993, the northern third declared itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus but the government is recognized only by Turkey. There is still much hostility and little association between residents of the two sides.
The Constitution of Cyprus allows for freedom of speech, assembly and the press and the government respects those rights. Though the internationally-recognized government is technically the ultimate authority for the whole island, the Turkish side has become self-governing.
The average annual incomes are about $13,000 on the Greek side and about $3,600 on the Turkish side.
People with disabilities enjoy some legal rights. Both sides provide disability pensions for those who can't work. On the Greek side, all new public buildings and tourist facilities are supposed to be accessible and qualified people with disabilities are supposed to have hiring preference for public sector jobs. But enforcement is weak. One of the disability rights laws on the Turkish side requires employers to have one worker with a disability for every 25 employees.
Interviews
Elise Torossian- She's a well-dressed, ever-respectable woman in her late 40s. She's the mother of an adult son and daughter and runs a tourist shop on the Greek side with her husband. She's an Armenian Cypriot, which comprise about four percent of the population.
Torossian used to be heavily involved in raising money for people with muscular dystrophy. Yes, they do have their own version of the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon in Greek Cyprus. When I told her how many Americans with MD and other disabilities object bitterly to the telethon, she replied, "We haven't had any reaction from the people suffering."
But in 1989 she changed course and got together with two others to form the Advocacy Group for the Mentally Ill. She became intrigued after meeting some family members of people with mental illness. "During years of having contact with people with serious mental disabilities we found out that their needs were not met in the community. Because in Cyprus families have a strong bond, most people were being taken care of by families and these families have a burden. They need support, they need information, they need benefits."
A typical situation was that of a 75-year-old woman she met, whose psychotic son was still living with her "She didn't even have the support of her neighbors. They thought he's lazy and he doesn't want to work. People are ignorant because it is an invisible disability. It's not easy for families to accept and they want to keep it quiet."
That's what intrigued her. "It was under the carpet.
"Nobody was talking to people with these disabilities. We needed to find a voice for them. We wanted to raise awareness in the public also."
The United Nations Office of Project Services in Cyprus gave her organization a grant which they have used to survey families as to their situations and needs. They've used these stories to illustrate the need for community care legislation.
Torossian says there is only one asylum for people with psychiatric disabilities left on her side of Cyprus and it is in the process of closing. She says the government began closing the asylums about 20 years ago. But most residents just went home to families, if they had families to go to, and little has been done to set up community supports.
"We will do it" is typical of promise to integrate physical & mental needs Not even the leaders of organizations of people with physical disabilities have been receptive, Torossian says. They have not supported her organization's campaign to have people with psychiatric disabilities included in the legal definition of disability. Thus, people with psychiatric disabilities do not receive the monthly pensions or other supports and protections others receive.
And the government hasn't been receptive either about the need for community support. "They want to diminish the problem. All we would hear is ,'We will do it or "We are doing it.'"
Torossian calls her organization a self-help group but most of the leaders are family members of people with mental illness and not the "patients" themselves. "They have lapses. They cannot always respond to responsibilities," Torossian says.
Even though they've not been able to change the law, Torossian thinks the mere presence of her group makes a big difference. "To organize people, to build and establish an organization I would say is definitely an achievement."
Will it take a long fight to get the government to give them the proper community support for people with psychiatric disabilities?
"We don't know if it is the proper thing to fight. We don't want to fight really. We want to be considered as their colleagues. But we don't feel accepted by them.
"I don't like to use the word fight. It's a struggle, really. I cannot say when, but I believe we will do what we started out to do."
Typical or Success Stories
Mustafa Celik, Spokesperson & Sportsperson
Mustafa Celik is soft spoken and confident. Once he was a famous man on his side of the island. He was a star soccer player when in 1982, at age 17, the car in which he was a passenger rolled over.
After his accident he was depressed sometimes to the point of suicide. And then one day, "My teacher asked me, "Would you like to play basketball?' I said, " What do you mean? Stop teasing me.' So I met with the guys at the gym. It changed my life. I began to live again. Sports was something that was everything to me. So I stopped thinking about death. I thought, "I'm not finished.'"
Advocacy is a team sport
Celik loves team sports. And advocacy to him is a team sport. One of his first accomplishments was convincing the Turkish-- Cypriot sports authority to purchase 10 wheelchairs so the basketball team could compete internationally as it still does today.
He's president of the 460-member North Cyprus Orthopedic Association, the leading disability and service organization. He ran for elected office and lost in 1998. He's been married for 13 years to a kindergarten teacher and works in a bank.
Cypriots with disabilities have won some important victories and Celik has been in the middle of the fray. The law that requires all employers to hire one person with a disability for every 25 employees is backed up by a monthly fine for non-compliance of three times the minimum wage. Celik says it is well enforced.
Celik points out that the movement for accessible public transit is young because there barely is public transit "It's useless. It's not only the disabled's problem, it's the whole country's problem."
Instead, Celik says, the laws make is easier for people with disabilities to purchase cars by waiving import taxes, which can be 70 percent of the price.
But, Celik says, "We cannot expect everything from the government. If we keep asking the government, someday they are going to say, "Oh come on! Stop it! How far will you go?'"
So his organization becomes involved in service delivery when it comes to people with motorized wheelchairs. They purchase them and deliver them to members. "What are we doing as associations if we aren't giving anything to our members others than advocacy?"
Celik says on his side of the island, advocacy is more a matter of persuasion than confrontation "The Cypriot people are very very very good people. Mediterranean people as you know are warm blooded and they've got a very warm heart. As long as you show them something you really need, that's it. They don't fight you. But you have to push."
Infrastructure
The most persistent problem is inaccessible infrastructure, including older public buildings and housing, Celik says. The most interesting and potentially useful solution he will take home from his United States visit , he says, is the concept of visitability. A visitable house has at least on wheelchair accessible entrances and ground floor doorways and corridors wide enough for someone in a wheelchair to pass through. A few cities in the U.S. have adopted laws requiring a certain amount of visitable home construction
"This is exciting," Celik says." When I get home I will think about this. I think this is fascinating."
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