[PDFlist] PDF Weekly Update – 24 September, 2018
Soloveni Vitoso
infor at pacificdisability.org
Sun Sep 23 23:34:33 MDT 2018
PDF Weekly Update – 24 September, 2018
Inclusiveness is vital for all.
Greetings from the PDF!
Every child and family is valued equally and deserves the same opportunities and experiences.
Whether the disability is mild or severe, hidden or obvious – participating in everyday activities, just like they would if their disability were not present. It’s about building friendships, membership and having opportunities just like everyone else.
PDF believes that inclusion is about providing the help children and adults need to learn and participate in meaningful ways. Sometimes, help from friends or teachers works best. Other times, specially designed materials or technology can help. The key is to give only as much help as needed.
So as we move forward to change policies and laws in our respective countries, we must ensure that it is including everyone and also taking everything into consideration.
In the news this week; An inclusive church in Samoa; A Sustainable Development Goals (2030 Agenda) and Voluntary National Review (VNR) Capacity Building Workshops in the Pacific for Pacific Small Islands Developing States (PSIDS) from 24 – 28 September 2018; Technology improves independence for people with disability and an Australian perspective on UN disability development.
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An Inclusive Church in Samoa
[Apia Protestant Church yesterday held a special service to commemorate international week of the deaf, 24th to the 30th of September with the theme, with sign language everyone is included.] The love of God is inclusive, the gospel is inclusive, even of persons who are deaf.
Apia Protestant Church yesterday held a special service to commemorate international week of the deaf, 24th to the 30th of September with the theme, with sign language everyone is included.
Members of the Deaf Ministry played important parts in the service, like the prayer, the reading of the word, and a special performance to highlight the theme.
Special thanks to all who had attended worshiping together with members of the Deaf Ministry, and for the Apia Protestant Church for hosting us. Apia Protest Church is the only church with a deaf ministry that has been in existence for over 20 years.
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A Sustainable Development Goals (2030 Agenda) and Voluntary National Review (VNR) Capacity Building Workshops in the Pacific for Pacific Small Islands Developing States (PSIDS) from 24 – 28 September 2018
[Group Photo - of the workshop participants in Nadi.]
The Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), through its SIDS Unit, in collaboration with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) - Pacific Office and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP-Pacific) are currently having a Sustainable Development Goals (2030 Agenda) and Voluntary National Review (VNR) Capacity Building Workshops in the Pacific for Pacific Small Islands Developing States (PSIDS) from 24 – 28 September 2018, at the Tanoa International Hotel, Nadi, Fiji.
The Workshop provides an opportunity for PSIDS to identify key regional issues, challenges and opportunities impacting their capacity to promote and ensure inclusivity and equality as they seek broad-based sustainable development while confronted by climate change and increased threats from natural disasters. Moreover, the Workshop will provide PSIDS with an opportunity to strengthen their capacity to conduct national follow up and review of their implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs through identification of best tools and strategies with a special focus on countries presenting VNRs in 2019.
This week will be divided into three different sessions as follows: (a) Pacific Preparatory Meeting for the 6th Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) on 24-25 September (led by UN-ESCAP); (b) Voluntary National Review Workshop for Pacific Small Island Developing States 26 - 27 September (led by UN-DESA); and (c) Workshop on Stakeholder engagement 28 September (UN-DESA led).
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Technology improves independence for people with disability
Posted 12 hours ago by Nicole Pope
[Vision Australia’s Access Technology Advisor David Woodbridge has been using Soundscape with his assistance dog [Source: Vision Australia]]Vision Australia’s Access Technology Advisor David Woodbridge has been using Soundscape with his assistance dog [Source: Vision Australia]
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Technology has yet again proved its value within the disability sector with the introduction of both a new navigation app to help the blind or vision impaired and a virtual reality training program that is set to teach people with intellectual disabilities road safety and other life skills.
The new Soundscape app, recently launched by Microsoft Australia and Vision Australia, will empower people who are blind or have low vision to explore their environment through 3D and audio awareness.
The app works by providing users with information about their surroundings through the setup of a chosen destination or familiar landmark.
By using Soundscape while wearing a stereo headset, people will be able to build an image of what’s around them, with the app able to call out roads, intersections and landmarks as the person passes them.
Vision Australia’s Access Technology Advisor David Woodbridge says the app allows him to feel confident and less stressed when he’s out and about.
“Soundscape gives me confidence in an outside environment by helping me understand what’s around me - whether it’s a restaurant, cafe, railway station, walking/bike track, park, business or even a street name,” he explains.
“Rather than dictate what I should do, it allows me to make my own decisions based on the information it is providing, meaning I am always in control.”
“The app is easy to use and I have my own personal markers set for different locations.”
Mr Woodbridge says he frequents his local coffee shop with the help of the ‘coffee shop’ Soundscape marker.
Corporate Affairs Director and Accessibility Lead at Microsoft Australia, David Masters, says “sound is incredibly important” in helping people with low or no vision participate in their communities.
“They already use sound to help them build a mental map of the world around them and what Soundscape does is it adds to that. So it allows someone to really create that richer perspective of what’s going around them.”
Mr Masters says Microsoft is thrilled to partner with Vision Australia and hopes the relationship will deliver valuable tools to the vision impaired community.
“It’s a really exciting time for accessible products and accessibility in general and we see technologies like artificial intelligence as incredibly powerful,” he says.
“Technology is an incredibly empowering experience for people with disabilities and we want to push the boundaries of that further.”
Mr Masters also says Microsoft Australia has announced a $25 million five year program called AI for Accessibility which will stimulate ideas within the community of how to use artificial intelligence to empower people with disabilities.
Managing Director of Microsoft, Steven Worrall hopes the organisation will gain a further understanding of the challenges people with vision impairments experience.
“We know that Vision Australia’s clients have seen huge benefits from the use of other Microsoft technologies and have contributed to making our tools more accessible.”
“It’s our mission to continue to partner with organisations like Vision Australia to make technology more accessible to the four million Australians who live with disabilities every day and specifically to the 384,000 Australians who are blind or have no [low] vision.”
Virtual reality (VR) is also proving powerful for disability support, thanks to its multifaceted ability to improve the quality of life of the elderly or people with disability.
The Endeavour Foundation recently launched 15 training programs, which will allow people with intellectual disabilities to learn a whole host of skills including road safety, obtaining cash from an automated teller machine (ATM) or barista training.
The same technology will also help people with intellectual disabilities learn to drive.
A spokesperson from Endeavour Foundation says the program helps increase the independence of people with intellectual disabilities, something that is often mentioned in their customer’s NDIS plans.
The realistic program has mapped streets their customers would encounter every day, with the course allowing the ‘driver’ to pull out of the driveway and travel along the main road near one of Endeavour’s offices before pulling into a McDonalds drive through.
“Independence without a car in Australia – especially in country towns – is all but impossible,” the spokesperson says.
“This is something that a lot of people with intellectual disability – as well as their families and support workers – believe is impossible to achieve.”
Dale Harvey, a customer of the Foundation’s Townsville Learning service says the program has helped him become more independent.
“I’m learning how to be smart with money and I’m learning how to cook,” he says.
“I thought the train VR program was the most helpful because it showed you how to get a ticket and that you had to wait for the train.”
Implementation Specialist at Endeavour Foundation, Stewart Koplick says the VR’s driving program is expected to be ready for release at the end of this year.
With the world of technology ever changing, its use within the disability sector sure presents exciting times for those requiring support.
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An Australian perspective on UN disability development
By Lisa Cornish<https://www.devex.com/news/authors/1251566> / 20 September 2018
[Rosemary Kayess, Australia’s first female representative to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities]
Rosemary Kayess, Australia’s first female representative to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
CANBERRA — In January, the United Nations<https://www.devex.com/organizations/united-nations-un-41567> Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will welcome Australia’s first female representative to the committee — Rosemary Kayess.
A human rights lawyer, Kayess brings impressive expertise to the committee. She was disability rights unite senior policy officer at the Australian Human Rights Commission<https://www.devex.com/organizations/australian-human-rights-commission-60958>, a member of the disability reference group for the <https://www.devex.com/organizations/australian-department-of-foreign-affairs-and-trade-dfat-21826> Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade<https://www.devex.com/organizations/australian-department-of-foreign-affairs-and-trade-dfat-21826>, a member of the <https://www.devex.com/organizations/world-bank-group-38382> World Bank<https://www.devex.com/organizations/world-bank-group-38382>’s expert focus group on nondiscrimination and disability, and a chairperson of the Australian Centre for Disability Law.
As an academic, Kayess is a senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales Social Policy Research Centre. Kayess was also part of the Australian government delegation responsible for drafting the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities<https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html>.
“What I do is try to create a framework by which people work,” Kayess explained to Devex. “My contribution through the convention negotiation, especially around article 24 on education, has contributed to disabled person organizations and people with disability having a framework through which they can advocate for their rights.”
Kayess also has first-hand experience of living with a disability, after a car accident at age 20 caused a spinal injury. The nomination of Kayess to the U.N. position by Australia was <https://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2018/jb_mr_180613.aspx> an important part of part of DFAT’s disability focus within aid programming<https://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2018/jb_mr_180613.aspx>, which aims to improve the participation of people living with disability in the Pacific.
Among the nine new members are six women, including representatives from Indonesia and South Korea. The new members of the 18 member committee will help bring strong representation from the Asia Pacific, as well as better gender parity.
Kayess explained to Devex that she hopes her work with the U.N. on the committee can bring greater clarity to state parties implementing CRPD<https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html>, helping to ensure the convention is met across the board for people with disability — including in education, justice, health, and political participation as well as across countries and cultures.
Facilitating a Pacific voice
While Australia’s representation on the committee provides an opportunity to facilitate engagement of Pacific Island nations, the country needs to ensure Pacific Island nations are able to have their own voice, and not speak for them.
“We have a good working relationship with the Pacific,” Kayess said. “I have worked very closely with the Pacific Disability Forum and the work that they do — our disabled persons organization here in Australia work closely with their organizations.
“I think it’s also important to realize that you’re not just an Australian. We have neighbors that may not have a voice in that process and we need to be able to listen to them and reflect their concerns as well,” she said.
Kayess expects Indonesia’s representative to be an important source to reflect on people with disability that live in the archipelago, as well as the limitations and barriers they may face.
Australia aims to engage with other Pacific countries to gain feedback from disability organizations and disability forums on a range of topics that could influence the decisions of the committee. And it is important, Kayess said, that the challenges of small island nations — who have a double disadvantage — are effectively addressed.
Focusing on the law
The committee meets twice a year in Geneva with representatives conducting legal research and comment on reviews, reports, and other issues that are presented. The convention is important in providing an overarching framework to support people living with disability globally that can be interpreted and implemented across all signatory countries.
“I come to this as a human rights lawyer,” Kayess explained to Devex. “Bringing the human rights framework to the development space. For me, this role and committee is about the CRPD in its whole. It’s about ensuring that areas such as education and social inclusion include the rights articulated in the convention. There is no need to focus on individual areas of development but rather the human rights framework and how that relates to those areas..
The committee has a very specific role, to provide a mechanism by which behavior is measured against the body of international law — law framed by CRPD.
“It’s about providing consistent and coherent legal analysis,” Kayess explained. “It’s about communicating effectively with state parties in a way that can support and promote states to be able to meet their obligations.”
“There has been lots of research about people meeting their obligations under international law and treaties in particular, but if people are not meeting their obligations it is not about willful disobedience — it’s generally around things like clarity of the obligations and capacity for them to understand what is expected of them, and how they can fulfill their obligations.”
The importance of the UN committee
According to Kayess, the U.N. committee plays an important role in fostering transparent and open dialogue on CRPD, including how states can interpret their obligations under this international law.
“The nature of treaties and the fact that they are negotiated and have to apply across different legal jurisdictions, across different culture, across different timescales creates challenges,” she said. “The document is not highly prescriptive because of its very nature — you don’t want to time locked into things that are understood in one jurisdiction but are not clear in others.”
This “fluidity” of international law means that it constantly needs to be supported through interpretation to meet changing needs and circumstances — making the committee an important source in both interpretation and implementation.
“We need to clearly demonstrate to states what the obligations are,” Kayess explained. “It’s a continual process of constructive processes with states, to look at what is required and reflect upon their own situations. You’ve got to understand the challenges of each state to address them.”
This dialogue can also support the U.N. in understanding what help they need to provide states on an individual basis — including through human rights councils and the work of special rapporteurs. At the end of the day, each country is responsible for their citizens living with disability have equal rights and access to services.
Support from Australia’s disability sector
The election of Kayess, and Australia’s role on the committee, has been strongly endorsed by Australia’s disability sector. Her work is highly regarded as strengthening legal frameworks and arguments that help others in their advocacy.
“Rosemary brings a wealth of expertise to this role, and Australian Disability and Development Consortium are excited to continue working with her in this new capacity to promote the rights of people with disabilities in developing countries,” Lucy Hodson, executive officer at the Australian Disability and Development Consortium, told Devex.
With Kayess one of six female representatives on the committee, Hodson said it was an important moment for the U.N. to reflect not only on the challenges in the Pacific, but the growing recognition that the barriers faced by women with disabilities are unique and compounded.
The challenge for Kayess and fellow members of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is to help interpret international law to facilitate this new understanding of disability in development.
“Part of ensuring leadership by people with disabilities includes ensuring representation of the diversity of lived experience of disability,” she said.
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Soloveni Vitoso
Public Relations & Communication Officer
Pacific Disability Forum
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