[PDFlist] PDF Weekly Update, 3 September, 2018

Mon Sep 3 00:06:15 MDT 2018

PDF Weekly Update, 3rd September, 2018

Greetings from the Pacific Disability Forum.

As I build up on the PDF weekly update, I would like to urge all DPO members to please utilize this platform to share what is happening within your DPOs on a weekly basis. I sincerely hope to hear from you in the days to come in regards to next week's update.

This week's updates is on the PDF - 6th Pacific Regional Conference on Disability; new appointment at Legal Aid Commission; renewal of the NZ Disability Action Plan; partnership to improve data source for persons with disabilities in the pacific; northern open day reflects talent of person with disability and my disability is what make me superhuman.
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PDF - 6TH Pacific Regional Conference on Disability

The first notice for the 6th Pacific Regional Conference on Disability has gone out last week to all PDF members, partners and friends as we look forward to 2020 and beyond.

With the theme: "From Recognition to Realisation of Rights: Furthering Effective Partnership for an Inclusive Pacific 2030," the conference will be from Monday, 25th February 2019 - Friday, 01st March 2019 at the Tanoa International Hotel, Nadi, Fiji.

There will be a slight change to the Programme Outline in this conference where the PDF General Forum will be first on the agenda happening on Monday, 25th February 2019. These will be followed by 2 concurrent meetings; the Pacific Regional Forum on Women with Disabilities: and the Pacific Regional Forum on Youth with Disabilities Tuesday, from the 26th February - 1:00pm Wednesday, 27th February 2019. The Disability Research Roundtable will be from 2:00pm - 5:00pm Wednesday, 27th February 2019 and then ending with the Pacific Disability Conference: Thursday, 28th February - Friday, 1st March 2019.

The 6th Pacific Regional Conference on Disability is organized by the Pacific Disability Forum in partnership with its member organisations of persons with disabilities (DPOs) in Fiji. Funding assistance is provided by the Government of Australia through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

For more information on the Conference, please contact The Manager; Finance and Cooperate; Mr. Raveen Chand on mfc at pacificdisability.org<mailto:mfc at pacificdisability.org>

New appointments at Legal Aid Commission

[Mr. Josko Wakaniyasi - President - Fiji Disabled Persons Association]FIVE new commissioners have been appointed to the Fiji Legal Aid Commission.

The Attorney-General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, who confirmed each appointee would serve a term of three years effective from August 23 this year.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said they were excited to welcome the newly-appointed commissioners at a time when legal aid offices and services were rapidly expanding across the country.

"The commission is already the largest law firm in Fiji, and it's growing faster than ever; providing greater access to justice and free legal services to those Fijians without the means to afford a lawyer," Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.

He said this year, they had opened new Legal Aid offices in Savusavu, Korovou, Nabouwalu and Levuka, with plans to open new offices in Taveuni, Keyasi and Seaqaqa soon.

"Our new appointees from the legal fraternity have decades of combined experience in the public and private legal sector where they have acquired a range of impressive skill set that will be a huge asset to the work of the commission," he said.

The new appointments include legal practitioners Mele Rakai, Virisila Lidise, Ritesh Naidu, president of the Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation Joshko Wakaniyasi, and chief executive officer of the Frank Hilton School Sureni Perera.

Renewal of the NZ Disability Action Plan

The current Disability Action Plan (2014-2018) is due for renewal. We will also be consulting on the priority actions for the new Disability Action Plan (2019 - 2022).

The Minister for Disability Issues, Hon Carmel Sepuloni, has been taking the opportunities when she visits the regions to meet with disabled people and listen to ideas on what might be in the new Action Plan. Those visits have included Whangarei, Tauranga, Invercargill and Rotorua.

There are six key issue that have already been highlighted by the Independent Monitoring Mechanism (the Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Ombudsman and the Disabled Peoples Coalition) for progress with Ministers in the new Action Plan: employment, housing, disability data, accessible government information, inclusive education and seclusion and restraint.

There will be some incomplete actions from the current Action Plan which will need continued work in the new Action Plan alongside other new actions.

Partnership to improve data for people with disabilities in the Pacific

SUVA,29 AUGUST 2018 (UNICEF/SPC) - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and The Pacific Community (SPC) announced a new [http://www.fijitimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/unicef_spc_data_pacific_women_children_08.2018.jpg] partnership to support the strengthening of data collection and data analysis to improve the lives of the most vulnerable children, women and people with disabilities across the Pacific islands and territories.
The collection and dissemination of reliable data of children and women worldwide is vital to identify and plan for their needs and to inform policies.
UNICEF Representative, Sheldon Yett, said, "Statistically sound and internationally comparable data is essential for the targeting of resources to reach the Sustainable Development Goals and meet the needs of the most vulnerable.  We welcome this partnership with SPC, which will work towards ensuring that global best practices are in place for data collection and analysis for women and children in the Pacific."
Through the collection of quality data, decision-makers are able to make positive change by identifying needs and monitoring progress in their countries. Quality data is essential for measuring a country's progress against the Sustainable Development Goals and currently in the Pacific islands, there is a lack of data to accurately measure this progress.
Highlighting the potential impact of this agreement for the Pacific, SPC's deputy director general Audrey Aumua, said: "Good policy is formed on a foundation of good data. Through this agreement, SPC and UNICEF will be able to better support the work of Pacific leaders to improve the lives of women and children across our region."
The new UNICEF-SPC partnership aims to support Pacific island governments to:
*       improve the quality and standards of data collection for children, women and people with disabilities;
*       analyse and utilize new and existing data to report and monitor the situation of children, women and people with disabilities; and
*       disseminate statistics, engage stakeholders and advocate for the collection and use of statistics in policy formulation.
This new initiative is aligned to the joint UN Data, Monitoring and Evaluation Group, established in Fiji and Samoa, which coordinates efforts to improve data collection, analysis and utilization for evidence based decision making and policy development in the Pacific islands and territories.
The 2017 World Bank Statistical Capacity Indicator reports that the Pacific Island countries rank significantly below the Asia-Pacific regional average and that the Pacific needs to improve specifically on health and poverty surveys as well as vital registration systems. Insufficient or no data risks leaving children behind on critical issues such as improving health, sanitation, education, and protecting children from violence, abuse and exploitation.
Regional initiatives, such as the Ten Year Pacific Statistics Strategy (TYPSS), seek to address some data collection challenges, however, despite these efforts, greater attention is needed to produce regular statistics on marginalised populations, including children, women and people with disabilities.

Northern open day reflects talents of people with disability

[ONLINE Recipients of FNCDP in Labasa showcase their handwork during today's Open Day at the school. Picture: SERAFINA SILAITOGA]The Fiji Times (Serafina Silaitoga) - VARIOUS artwork displayed at the Fiji National Council for Disabled Persons Open Day today reflects the talents and abilities of people with disability in Labasa.

These were the words of FNCDP executive officer Kaushilya Devi as their students showcased their handicraft work at the institution.

"We need to create awareness to tell society about the work done by disabled people and this is why we have an annual open day," Ms Devi said.

"This open day is to also tell communities that we have a centre and facilities that cater for disabled people so families with disabled members can bring their loved ones here to learn basic skills to support themselves in life.

"This is very important so we teach and train our students ensuring that their abilities are shown through their handicraft and art work."
The handicraft work included interior decorations, towel holders, cushion and couch covers.

My disability is what makes me superhuman
      By Brandon Cook - Sydney Herald

When I was three years old, I couldn't speak. It was a surreal reality that boggled the minds of doctors and my mother. They suspected developmental disorders: the lights were on, people were home, but nobody was answering the door.
One day I was shadowing my mother. She found herself looking in a mirror, and through it we locked eyes. She began to speak to me through the reflection, uttering every word she hoped I might one day sound out. My eyes flickered between her lips and mine - and I slowly began to mimic her movements, until I formed a word.
I didn't have any developmental disorders. I was hard of hearing.
"If you think I'm living in a state of self-hating sorrow, you are sorely mistaken."

It turns out I'm categorically deaf in my left ear, and have a slight impairment in my right. I have a vestibular disorder in my inner ear, which means that for the first half of my existence I couldn't play sports or engage in rigorous physical activity. If I copped a blow to the head or hit the weights too hard, I'd endure intracranial pressure that would cause me to lose more hearing. I've grown out of it, but you can imagine how the kids at school let me feel.
Being hard of hearing has seen me saddled with shame - but if you think I'm living in a state of self-hating sorrow, you are sorely mistaken.
Imagine being able to shut out the sound of hollering street-slickers as you lay your head down to sleep - by simply rolling over onto one side. That's my reality when I sleep on my "good ear". When I find myself shacked up next to men who snore, it's a goddamn superpower.
People call my deaf side my "bad ear", but when I wear my hearing aid - a revolutionary technology that amps up the volume and offers clarity of sound - I have access to an invisible range of features that you hapless normies simply can't comprehend. Like hearing loops<https://www.hearinglink.org/living/loops-equipment/hearing-loops/what-is-a-hearing-loop/> in cinemas. One click of a button and I can catch a whole film as though it were whispered from the mouth of the director, meanwhile you're struggling to hear dialogue over popcorn crunching and couples making out.

The old aids even had volume knobs. Needless to say, I enjoyed a childhood of being able to eavesdrop on conversations and listen through walls, much to the thrill of my friends and the chagrin of my teachers. And when I take out my hearing aid at the end of a long day, I'm blessed with a uniquely serene peace and quiet.
But it's not all superhuman abilities and self-imposed silence. Sometimes there's stigma.
On the first day I owned an aid, when I was eight, I took it to school with me for show-and-tell. I remember holding it up for my classmates to see and explaining how it worked.
At which point a boy yelled out, "Aren't those for old men?"
It was the heckling of a third-grader, to be sure. But just like that, I felt different. Not unique like beautiful flowers or snowflakes in the air, but strange. Deformed. It took a long time for me to get over that sense of being so unlike my peers - to the point where, for a while, I stopped wearing my aid, at great cost to my education.
Indeed, it's a feeling not at all foreign to those who are hard of hearing. When hearing aids were bigger - now they're almost invisible - they hung from your ears like uncanny tags. When all you want is to blend in, they forced you to stand out and, as they say, the nail that stands out gets hammered down.
But it's not just schoolyard hecklers who are out to make us deaf and hard-of-hearing folks feel like burdens to the taxpayer. Its infrastructure and society at large. Because what causes disability isn't physical difference or even punk kids - it's a disabling environment.
For every comedic video on your news feed that lacks closed captioning - a feature entirely feasible for any media outlet worth its salt - an entire community of deaf people are unable to chuckle, too. We're excluded from enjoying cinema, because though some venues have induction loops, captioning sessions is a strange and foreign concept. Speaking of hearing loops: Public transportation is severely lacking in this regard. Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, for example, has had just the one hearing induction loop, solely on Platform One - since 1978.
And when hearing aids cost around $2,500 a pop, unattainability of what should be acquirable care can lead to lost opportunities for the young and poor.
I spent years feeling separate from the flock, a black sheep nursing wounds I never asked for. I would stare out the window at clinics as audiologists tested my hearing, thinking to myself, "So this is who I am. I'm one of the unlucky ones."
But the thing is, I was wrong. It isn't my responsibility to elevate myself to whatever common folk deem "normal" - that belongs to the society that inhibits me.
I am lucky. I can listen to music, enjoy films, and catch whispered sweet nothings. Some of us have it differently, perhaps what hearing folk might see as worse - but they, too, can enjoy their time just the same. I am deaf, but I can still hear everything. I am blessed with wonderful lived experience, and I am human.
Sometimes, I'm even superhuman.

Thanks and Blessed Week!

Solo.

Soloveni Vitoso
Public Relations & Communication Officer

Pacific Disability Forum
Ground Floor | Kadavu House
Victoria Parade | Suva
Fiji

Phone: (+679) 3312008  |  (+679) 3307530
Mobile: (+679) 8912656
Fax: (+679) 3310469
Skype: Soloveni.vitoso
Email: infor at pacificdisability.org<mailto:infor at pacificdisability.org>
Website: www.pacificdisability.org<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fwww.pacificdisability.org%2f&c=E,1,If0z8o95mb94uk4KDWU-Tr-TH_UiiV5O4Pz9J4TSREnERXcgdWH50W6mPnFuImIn8Qz_RAcGKmvccr0uiZ2ldgpjjWJ92jJPxU2DmShnGwI2-64RfMBtIfpnDFI,&typo=1>
Facebook: Pacific Disability Forum<https://www.facebook.com/PacificDisabilityForum/>
Twitter: @pdfsec

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