Education for Disability and Gender Equity

The EDGE (Education for Disability and Gender Equity) is a research and development project to create a website, CD, and teacher's guides that will address the need for gender and disability sensitive high school educational materials. The proposed educational material will:

- provide material on disabled men and women, disability and gender in the context of humanities and sciences courses at the high school level;
- provide visual, audio and textual representations which is accessible and relevant; and
- incorporate the input of disabled and non-disabled girls and boys, adult women with disabilities and other experts in the development and evaluation of the products.

The course material will kept on the World Wide Web by the Disabled Women's Alliance to provide sustainable accessibility of the product.

Join our efforts to educate high school students and teachers about disability and gender. You can:

- send us resources in humanities or sciences
- identify key role models
- host a focus group in your town
- tell us about great materials (any media)
- review EDGE materials

Project EDGE is a state-of-the-art research project designed to develop and evaluate accessible, multi-media educational materials in humanities and sciences which inform students about disability and gender at the high school level. By providing information about disabled women and men in the context of history, biology, civics, health and literature, students can reduce bias and increase respect of gender differences and disability related diversity. The area of equity most impacted by this project will be in promoting equal access to the sciences and humanities, creation of positive images and knowledge about people who differ by gender, race, disability or other characteristics.

For more information, contact Disabled Women's Alliance/ San Francisco Women's Centers, Inc., PO Box 6008, Albany, CA 94706 USA, 510-528-2206, GenderEdge@aol.com

Womens Issues/briefly:

Sterilisation and Reproductive Health of Women with Disabilities in Australia

WWDA National Forum
Sydney
Thursday 15th February 2001

Sterilisation is one of the major issues confronting women with disabilities. There has been very little research conducted, by any sector, on the issue of unlawful sterilisation, and more broadly, on the issue of reproductive health of women with disabilities in Australia. The limited research that has occurred has generally not included or involved women with disabilities. Women with disabilities, particularly women with intellectual disabilities have had little opportunity to speak about their experiences, or participate in legislative, policy and/or program development.

Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA) has secured funding from the Commonwealth Office of the Status of Women to conduct a National Forum on Sterilisation and Reproductive Health of Women with Disabilities in Australia. The National Forum will be conducted in conjunction with the International Conference "Disability With Attitude: Critical Issues 20 Years
after International Year of The Disabled Person" being held in Sydney in February 2001.

The WWDA National Forum on Sterilisation and Reproductive Health of Women with Disabilities will aim to give women with disabilities an opportunity to speak about their experiences and issues in relation to reproductive health, including sterilisation.

The Forum will also aim to:
- Identify key areas and issues requiring further research and action;
- Develop practical strategies which participants and relevant organizations can implement;
- Provide a supportive environment for sharing of information, networking, and learning from international experience.

Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA)
PO Box 229 Dickson 2602 ACT
Ph: 02 62421310 Fax: 02 62421314 Mobile: 0407 301 746
Email: wwda@ozemail.com.au
Website: http://www.wwda.org.au
Contact: Carolyn Frohmader, Executive Director

Womens Issues/briefly:

Disabled Women on the Web

"Disabled Women on the Web" is a resource providing links to a variety of projects of interest to women with disabilities. Future developments on the site will include information related to social history of women with disabilities, information for artists, and an online library. The site address is http://www.disabilityhistory.org/