Disability Rights |

Advocacy for and by people with disabilities

Education for children with disabilities: Deaf pupils in Ethiopia

Disabled people often have the same experience, no matter what country they live in – the fact that they are underestimated by society because of their disability. Society refuses to recognise their abilities. Persons with disabilities are discriminated against. They are denied the rights to which everyone is entitled. Persons with disabilities are especially hard-hit by this situation in the marginalised regions of our world. The cycle of poverty and disability means that persons with disabilities are denied their rights, they are refused education and access to basic health care services and medical care and, many times, the right to life itself. For this very reason, LIGHT FOR THE WORLD advocates for the organisation of political and social conditions at all levels so that persons with disabilities have the possibility to demand and realise their rights.

LIGHT FOR THE WORLD achieves UN paradigm shift

The consistent advocacy work of LIGHT FOR THE WORLD is reflected in a recently adopted resolution explicitly committing the United Nations to include persons with disabilities in the Millennium Development Goals.

LIGHT FOR THE WORLD -Human Rights consultant Marianne Schulze was involved in negotiating the new resolution: "The UN member states actually had to be reminded that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is the new guideline in reaching the targets of the Millennium Development Goals. Only the revised version of the resolution embedds the principles of, inclusive and accessible human rights – as enshrined in the Convention."

Rupert Roniger, managing director of LIGHT FOR THE WORLD, welcomes the commitment of the UN General Assembly as another milestone on the way to an inclusive society and accessible world: "This is a very important step for the 500 million Person with Disabilities living in developing countries. Currently, many of them are excluded from fundamental rights such as primary education and free and affordable health care."

LIGHT FOR THE WORLD was successful in implementing the human rights approach in other resolutions, such as the resolution on the right to food. This resolution calls on UN Member States to provide accessible and inclusive development programs fighting hunger and malnutrition. Furthermore, in a resolution on the situation of women in rural areas an explicit reference to women with disabilities was suggested by FOR THE WORLD and adopted by the General Assembly.

Webtips:
http://www.un.org/disabilities/
http://www.8goals4future.at/

A New International Human Rights Convention on Disability Rights

On 30 March 2007, the new UN Human Rights Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was signed by 81 countries across the world, including Austria. LIGHT FOR THE WORLD has successfully campaigned, together with other organisations, to bring about a provision, a specific Article, in this new Convention that promotes and ensures that international cooperation actions and activities are to be inclusive of, and accessible to, persons with disabilities.
This means that it should no longer be possible, for instance, to promote a school project that excludes children with disabilities or a village development project that fails to include persons with disabilities.

Text of the Convention of the United Nations

Further Informationen on the Negotiations on the UN-Convention

European development cooperation must not ignore people with disabilities

At the annual meeting of the network of local disability organisations held in Tanzania in December 2006, persons with disabilities advocate for their rights.

Against the background of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, LIGHT FOR THE WORLD will continue its commitment to persons with disabilities living in developing countries in its work at EU level and across all of its development cooperation activities in Austria. A number of successes have been achieved in recent years. There is a growing awareness that persons with disabilities living in developing countries can no longer be excluded from development cooperation activities. This message is finding growing acceptance and is being increasingly incorporated into the fundamental principles of development cooperation programmes. However, there is still a lot to be done. An EU-funded project led by LIGHT FOR THE WORLD, which is being implemented in cooperation with 11 other European organisations, is making a contribution to this end. This initiative is researching the extent to which disability is recognised in development cooperation activities of 25 EU member states and brings to light ways and means of better including persons with disabilities in development projects.

Persons with Disabilities: advocating for their Rights

In a pilot project in Tanzania, LIGHT FOR THE WORLD is supporting the work of local disability organisations in their demands for equal access to schooling and quality education from their political leaders. LIGHT FOR THE WORLD shares know-how and supports the capacity and the work of this disability network (called the Inclusive Tanzania Consortium) to effectively advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities living in Tanzania. LIGHT FOR THE WORLD believes it is essential to empower persons with disabilities and their representative organizations to enable them to fight for their rights and for the equality and non-discrimination of persons with disabilities.