Today the Prime Minister
announced that the Commonwealth Government is taking over
the direct funding of a hospital in Tasmania. According
to Mr Howard, "The Australian people are not especially
concerned about theories of governance when it comes to
the delivery of basic services."
This is surely a turning point in
Commonwealth, State and Territory relations.
However…
Commonwealth
State Housing Agreement (CSHA)
Last week the Minister for
Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mal
Brough, flagged major changes to the Commonwealth State
Housing Agreement (CSHA).
Mr Brough said: "Given the
states and territories abysmal record in managing
public and community housing, with housing stock
actually falling over the past decade despite the
Australian Government's massive funding to states and
territories, we are now radically altering our
approach to ensure a better deal for future
generations in need of affordable housing. Today I am
announcing that for the next CSHA from July 2008, we
will immediately invite expressions of interest from
all parties, including state and territory
governments, the non-government sector and the private
sector such as major builders and any other interested
individuals, groups or organisations, for their
proposals and ideas on new and innovative approaches
to using the available funds to increase affordable
housing supply. This represents an innovative and
dynamic shift in approach which will help ensure more
effective use is made of Australian taxpayer funds to
increase housing supply.
Expressions of interests are
invited by 28 September 2007.
Interested parties or people
seeking information can contact a special hotline on 1800
047 482 (TTY 1800 260 472) or email socialhousing@facsia.gov.au
Similarly…
Commonwealth
State and Territory Disability Agreement
This agreement has actually run out
and several meetings between the Commonwealth, the States
and Territories have been held with representatives
storming out of meetings, making and withdrawing offers
and lots of press coverage and announcements.
MDAA is part of a coalition of
agencies formed to protect the CSTDA to achieve decent
outcomes for people with disabilities. The principles of
this coalition’s position are:
- The CSTDA must remain a
national agreement with the States and Territories to
support people with disabilities across Australia.
- As a national Agreement, the
CSTDA must be fair, equitable and transparent in its
funding processes.
- The CSTDA must ensure the best
possible supports are provided to people with
disabilities wherever they live in Australia.
- The CSTDA must improve access
and services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people with disability who have previously been
largely neglected. Of critical importance is a
provision for the funding of national, state and
territory networks of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people with disability.
- The CSTDA should provide better
transparency and accountability as well as improved
accreditation for disability services.
- The CSTDA should assist states
and territories to address all unmet need for
disability services.
- The CSTDA should provide a
balance between responding to crisis, and prevention
and early intervention. Instead of a vacancy managed
system, the CSTDA should provide pathways that enable
people with disabilities to move out of their family
home in a planned way prior to family breakdown. This
respects the needs of both the person with disability
and their carer.
- All forward spending plans
towards unmet need must be eligible for matched growth
spending from the Australian Government.
The position statement is available
as a pdf by 
340kbclicking
here.
As
identified in our July newsletter
the Commonwealth (as part of the CSTDA
“negotiations”) is proposing to fund supported
accommodation. The funds allocated to provide supported
accommodation places and the number of accommodation
places this money is supposed to buy, translate into
building institutions for at least 10 persons per
accommodation. As discussed previously, MDAA is very
concerned about this announcement and we have written to
the Minister Mal Brough about this matter.
Some of what we said in our letter
is:
“Your announcement of
funding for 175 ten-bed facilities across the country
flies in the face of what people really want and all
the available evidence from Australia and all over the
world.
We understand that many ageing
carers are desperate for some certainty about the long
term accommodation arrangements for their family
member with disability. We also understand why family
members would argue for or accept congregate care
facilities, because of desperation, unavailability of
alternatives and a lack of knowledge of what else
could be possible. Despite that, we know from research
and our members’ and consumers’ experience
that congregate residential facilities are simply not
in the best interests of people with disability.
If, in spite of the evidence,
the Commonwealth Government funds such facilities, we
believe on very strong grounds that it will be
responsible for creating a legacy of exclusion not
inclusion; and an unacceptably high risk that people
with disability will experience higher levels of
abuse. These facilities will be places of abuse and
exclusion not only for this generation but for many
generations to come. A hundred years of experience
with institutions in Australia and hundreds of reports
documenting their failures ought to be enough evidence
to prevent the Commonwealth from repeating the
mistakes of the past.”
We will let NESB and Disability
News readers know the Minister’s response.
Nigeria
Pacelli Pupils Show Ability in
Disability
By Falilat Abiri, 07.31.2007 from
www.thisdayonline.com
Pakistani-born Miss Sania Naqvi was
not born blind. She was growing like any other child
until she got to Primary Four, when her teachers noticed
a steady deterioration in her academic performance. This
was brought to her parents’ attention. Her mother,
Mrs. Inam Fatima Naqvi told THISDAY that she decided to
tutor her daughter personally. "It was then I discovered
that my daughter had eyes disorder. She could neither
write well nor identify words, I became concerned. I went
to different hospitals for various eye tests and cure,
all to no avail. After all these, I decided to take her
to London for proper check up", she said.
Sania was diagnosed with Biedl
Bardet Syndrome, a disease that affects the eyes, kidney
and heart. The family had to accept the hard truth that
she was going blind and nothing could be done about it.
Sadly, the same fate befell her second daughter, 16
year-old Zehra.
Mrs Naqvi, who has since accepted
her fate, is not in any way deterred by her
children’s situation. She said she was prepared to
spend the last of her earnings to make them the best that
they can be. She consequently enrolled them at the
Pacelli School for the Blind and Partially Sighted
Children, Surulere, Lagos.
Both girls were among the 10
graduands at last week’s end of session ceremonies
of the school. Sania said, "God has a reason for
everything. Being blind is not the end of the world. That
is why other blind people out there should not despair or
blame God for their situation. Rather, they should
explore their various talents for the betterment of
themselves and humanity in general."
Sania wants to be a world-class
Accountant. She said: "After now, I want to go to high
school, then university where I will study Accountancy
and become a well known Accountant." Zehra intends to
study History.
For both the graduands and other
pupils of the school, the event was another opportunity
to show the world how much ability there is in
disability. Guests were treated to a scintillating
choreography session by the pupils. Lined-up in five rows
of three each, they danced without missing their steps or
falling out of line, to the delight of everyone. They
were said to have practiced the dance in just one
day.
"I am happy. I don't need to say
it. You can see it all over me. I can now proceed to
secondary school. My graduation today is a stepping stone
to my becoming a lawyer."
The News Panorama by the articulate
duo of Miss Latifah Ayinla and Master Abel Akanni was
also quite impressive.
Another graduand, who participated
in virtually all the dancing and cultural displays,
Master Michael Ogunsanya, wants to be a popular musician
in future. He said this was his calling, as revealed to
him in a dream. Michael, who was born blind, said his
disability was in no way a hindrance to his success.
"What the sighted can do, the blind can do better", he
said, with a message for others who suffer one kind of
handicap or the other not to see their disability as a
barrier to their success in life. "They should strive
like other able-bodied men and women in the
society."
The pupils’ handwork,
including tie and dye materials, stools and bags, were
also exhibited. So impressed was one of the guests,
Alhaji Jubrila Ayinla, with the pupils and staff, that he
donated the sum of N1million to the school.
Master Samuel Dabiri stood out with
his lissome smiles that no one failed to notice. He said,
amidst giggles that he was happy because he was on his
way to becoming a lawyer.
When asked what was the secret of
the pupils’ impressive performance and infectious
happiness the principal Sister Benedicta Ogike said they
are nurtured and treated to see themselves as normal
pupils, with the necessary help they require to function.
This she said has helped in building confidence and
satisfaction in them. Credit was given to the former
Principal, Sr. Justina Obiajunwa, who was also sent forth
at the ceremony, amidst tears, for most of the
innovations.
Earlier in his remarks, the
Proprietor of the school and Archbishop of the Lagos
Archdiocese of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Anthony
Olubunmi Okogie, appealed the government to contribute to
the development of the school because the pupils are the
primary responsibility of the government.
Obiajunwa, said the task was very
challenging at the beginning. The support and
encouragement she got from the late Reverend Father Paul
Shean and Reverend Father John Mahan, she said, saw her
through.
The children were a great
encouragement to her too, she said, as they made her who
she is today. The former Principal, who has been
transferred to Onitsha said the way the pupils composed
themselves and related with each other, was enough to
make her want to stay on in the school. But this, she
said, was beyond her power.
Describing the pupils as nice and
inspiring, she charged the society to look beyond their
visual challenge and tap into their
potentials.
A Braille wrist watch and a
typewriter were presented to each of the 10 graduands to
facilitate their educational pursuits.
Lebanon
Disability often means
unemployment
By Helen Assaf, Special to The
Daily Star; Monday, July 30, 2007
A disabled woman needed to collect
some official papers from the Health Ministry to enable
her to have a certain operation performed. When handed
the papers to fill in, she noticed that some of the
details had already been provided. Under the section
'employment' it said in Arabic: muaaq (handicapped).
That disability is not a handicap
to employment is a lesson in progress in Lebanon. There
is a law that seeks to promote equal employment
opportunities for the disabled while also assuring the
basic rights of people with disabilities: Law 220 was
passed in 2000, and among its 102 acts, it sets a quota
for the percentage of a business' staff that should be
recruited from people with disabilities. Failure to meet
the quota results in financial penalties. "When law 220
came we were very happy as it assured our rights of
inclusion, defined disability and who benefits from this
law and it was very clear that all people with
disabilities should be equally benefiting from this law,"
says Sylvana Lakkis, chairperson of the Lebanese
Physically Handicapped Union (LPHU), who described the
efforts prior to the passage of the law as a "long
struggle."
Prior to the law's passage, Lakkis
says that if people with disabilities wanted to find a
job, the system in place - requiring a certificate of
health - was a discriminatory one that prevented, rather
than promoted employment for the disabled. This culture
of exclusion would begin with the education system, which
required a person with disability to submit an
application if they wanted to attend a regular school.
"So as a result of these attitudes, the majority of
Lebanese society grew up with the idea that anything to
do with the disabled has to be separate - that they are
different from others," says Lakkis.
The statistics certainly paint a
gloomy picture. According to an International Labour
Organization report, in 2006, out of the 27,086 people
with disability and capable of working, only 7,052 people
were employed. This effectively points to a possible
unemployment rate among people with disabilities of 74
percent. The report says: "This proportion is weak mainly
because the relevant labour legislation is not applied
and the employer assumes that persons with disability are
unable to work. For Lebanese people with disabilities,
access to education and vocational training is limited,
the support required is unavailable, and there is little
or no infrastructure for physical access to the
workplace."
Three years ago charities such as
Oxfam Quebec, Christian Aid and Oxfam UK among others
helped LPHU to open a job center in Bar Elias in the
Bekaa Valley. "It was very challenging to open it there
because we wanted to go where people had less
opportunities," says Lakkis. A smaller office is located
in Beirut but is still in its early stages. The job
center carries out a variety of projects, including
raising awareness, providing technical support to
employers when it comes to modification of the workplace,
and a capacity-building program targeting employers to
support them and empower them in entering diversity
management. The latter, according to Lakkis, is a must
for companies to know, not only in reference to
disability, "but if they want to become one of the
leading companies of the future they should learn how to
manage diversity at work."
Lakkis says that employers often
have misconceptions about workers with disability so are
surprised when presented with international experience
and reports that prove that disabled people tend to have
better work attendance, don't get sick as often as
able-bodied people and take fewer holidays, as they want
to prove themselves. In addition, most people with
disabilities don't require the workplace to be specially
adapted for them and even when they do, it is often much
less costly than imagined. "A media campaign would cost a
company much more than adaptation of the workplace and
they should look at it this way: if you want to win more
customers you have to have your place for all," Lakkis
said.
Since the launch of the employment
office, which also offers a matchmaking service to
jobseekers with disabilities and potential employers,
more than 80 people with disabilities have found
employment through it. "As a result of our experience
with the private sector they are very supportive; once
you provide facts and technical support, they have no
problem ... they want benefits and there are benefits to
employing disabled people," says Lakkis.
The private sector definitely plays
a key role in setting examples that can be replicated by
others. "At Deloitte in Lebanon and the Middle East, we
strongly believe that we have an important role in
demonstrating corporate citizenship through active
involvement in policy and economic development, skills
training and educational programs, and other
philanthropic and community relations activities," says
Rana Ghandour Salhab, partner at Deloitte ME. "Diversity
in all its forms, inclusion and supporting the basic
rights of people with disability are some of the areas we
consider as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility
program. We are active with a number of centers for
children with Special Needs across the region, and have
just become a sponsor of the Special Olympics programs in
Lebanon and the MENA region."
While the private sector, NGOs and
charities have been making some progress when it comes to
inclusion, Law 220 has not proven to be the catalyst for
change that it was designed to be - at least not yet. The
quota and penalty system is not being implemented across
the board, a fact that Lakkis attributes to lack of
planning prior to its passage and the absence of
mechanisms within the law to enforce its implementation.
She cites the fact that the executive body of each
ministry responsible for implementing each part of the
law has not been set up yet, nor is there even one person
who acts as a reference point or that is in charge of
receiving penalty payment.
Meanwhile, in a country as conflict
ridden as Lebanon, the numbers of people with disability
continue to rise. At the end of the July war, government
estimates placed the number of wounded at more than
4,000, around 500 of whom will remain permanently
disabled. At least another 209 civilians have been
wounded by mines/unexploded ordinance since then. Like
every other person with disability, they will no doubt be
hoping their right to inclusion in society will be
actively protected rather than sadly neglected
_______________________________________
Barbel Winter
Executive Director
Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association of NSW
PO BOX 9381
Harris Park, NSW 2150
Australia
ph: + 61 (0)2 9891 6400
www.mdaa.org.au
