A Glimpse of the New RI Executive Committee

RI, an international organization that has been working to promote the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities for over 80 years, elected a new Executive Committee at its 20 th World Congress in Oslo, Norway in June 2004. The new RI Executive Committee (EC) - with 21 members, half of whom are persons with disabilities, from six different geographic regions and representing a variety of government, advocacy and NGOs - represents the hundreds of member organizations in 80 countries that comprise RI.

RI's EC is composed of a President, Immediate Past President, Treasurer, a Vice President and Deputy Vice President for each of the regions - Africa, Arab, Asia Pacific, European, Latin American and North America - as well as the Chair of each RI commission, which includes the Education Commission, International Commission on Technology and Accessibility (ICTA), Commission on Health and Function, Commission on Policy and Services, Social Commission and the Commission on Work and Employment.

Several of RI's EC members are returning to serve on the committee, but the major of the EC members are new.

Highlighted here are some of the RI EC members:

Michael Fox from Australia was elected as the new RI President at the Oslo Governing Assembly. Mr. Fox, an experienced architect, planner and access consultant who's been involved in architecture, access and equity since 1972, is the director of the Sydney company Access Australia and the related architectural company Michael Fox Architects. Mr. Fox has been involved with RI since 1979 and has served as Global Chair of ICTA since 1996.

Mr. Fox has actively promoted access and equity in Australia and the Asia Pacific Region since the mid 1970s. His involvement in Australia included being the Chair of the Standards Australia Committee 1974 to 1984, during initiation, research and incorporation of AS1428 into national building legislation. Mr. Fox's access and equity projects included strategies and programs for the Sydney 2000 Olympic & Paralympic Games.

Kenneth Aitchison from the U.S. is the new Treasurer for RI. Mr. Aitchison retired as the President and CEO of Kessler Rehabilitation Corporation after 24 years of service. Under his leadership, Kessler was consistently named as one of the nation's top rehabilitation facilities by U.S. News & World Report. Mr. Aitchison has served on a number of boards and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association.

Sebenzile Matsebula from South Africa is the new RI Deputy Vice President for the African Region. Ms. Matsebula is the Director of the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons (OSDP) in the Presidency. OSDP has a mandate to coordinate, facilitate, monitor and evaluate the implementation of the government's white paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy, which provides guidelines on the integration of disability into mainstream society. Ms. Matsebula, who has a disability, has worked for many years with the disability movement in the struggle to advocate and promote the rights of disabled persons. Currently, she is participating as a government representative at the UN Ad Hoc committee meetings towards a UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Ms. Matsebula has worked extensively with the World Bank, The UN Association International (UNAIS), the World Health Organization, and the International Labour Organization.

Ray Fletcher is the Chair of RI's Work & Employment Commission. Mr. Fletcher recently retired as the Executive Director, HR & External Affairs for Remploy, the UK's leading provider of employment opportunities for people with disabilities, which supports around 12,000 disabled people in the UK. Currently, Mr. Fletcher does voluntary work and serves on boards and in organizations related to the employment of people with disabilities. During his time with Remploy, Mr. Fletcher helped introduce a Learning Centre in each of Remploy's over 80 locations, which had a significant effect on removing long-term barriers and enabled more disabled people to choose and decide their own career paths.

Mr. Fletcher is also involved in developing RI-UK, which is a reorganization of RI activities in the UK targeted to increase involvement of a broad spectrum of organizations that share the same goal of full inclusion, independence and participation of people with disabilities in society. Mr. Fletcher was recognized by HM Queen Elizabeth II for his work for people with disabilities in the UK and was awarded an OBE at Buckingham Palace in July 2004.

Anne Hawker, Chair of the Social Commission, is currently employed by the Accident Compensation Corporation, a government insurance company in New Zealand, as a Manager of the Rehabilitation Improvement team. Ms. Hawker has long been involved in disability issues as a care and service provider, advocate, government policy maker and as a person living with a disability herself. She has been active in RI for many years and helped host the 1996 RI World Congress in New Zealand. Among the things Ms. Hawker wants to see the Social Commission accomplish is to help create an environment where the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities can be an effective rights based tool.

Penny Price from Australia is the Chair of RI's Education Commission and has worked with disability issues throughout her career, including running schools for children with disabilities, researching strategies to support parents to promote the maximum develop of their young disabled children and teaching student teachers at a university level in teacher preparation programs designed to prepare them to teach diverse ability levels in regular schools. Ms. Price has also worked extensively in seven South Pacific countries, assisting NGOs to develop programs for young children with disabilities and advocating to governments to include all children in schools.

More recently Ms. Price has been working for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific in Bangkok, implementing the first and second Decades for Disabled Persons, and was involved in the development of the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action Towards an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific. She is currently working with UNESCO on a project to identify good practices in the inclusion of children and youth with disabilities in national education systems.

Khaled El Mohtar from Lebanon has been an active and dedicated member of RI for many years. Mr. El Mohtar, the new RI Vice President for the Arab Region, served on the EC before as the Deputy Vice President for the Arab Region. He is a Founding Member and the Director General at the National Rehabilitation and Development Center (NRDC). Mr. El Mohtar is also on the board of the National Society Security Fund in Lebanon and has been actively involved in the UN disability convention process attending the last many Ad Hoc meetings in New York.

Mr. El Mohtar spent his early career teaching mathematics and working in the business world, but he has been dedicated to working on disability issues for over 20 years. He is the founding member of several NGOs, including the Handicapped Services Coordination Committee in Lebanon, and has served on the board or as a member of numerous disability and rehabilitation NGOs, including the International Abilympics Federation, Inclusion International and the Mediterranean Countries Committee for Health and Physical Rehabilitation.

In addition to the RI EC members mentioned above, there are several other members who are adding their expertise and commitment to the group. Lex Frieden, the current Chair of the U.S. National Council on Disability, remains on the RI EC as the Past President after serving four distinguished years as the RI President. The RI EC also includes: Gidion Mandesi, a prominent Tanzanian lawyer; Mukhtar bin Mohamed bin Mussalam Al Rawahi, head of the Omani Organization of Disabled Persons; Nareewan Chintakanond, a disability leader based at the National Council on Social Welfare in Thailand; Benny Wai-leung, a former Paralympian based at the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation; Heidi Lindberg of RI Finland and senior staff member of the Finnish National Association of the Disabled; Dr. Jiri Votava, a senior rehabilitation physician in the Czech Republic; Victor Hugo Flores Higuera, head of the President's Office on the Status of Disabled Persons in Mexico; Geraldo Nogueira, disability leader in Brazil; Marca Bristo, excutive director of Access Living, a leading center for independent living in the USA; Max Beck, head of RI Canada; Betty Dion of Canada, Chair of the RI Commission on Technology and Accessibility (ICTA); Dr. Martin Grabois of the U.S., Chair of the RI Commission on Health & Functioning; and Mark Webber of South Africa, Chair of the RI Commission on Policy & Services.

 printer-friendly format