2010 International VSA arts Festival

From June 6-12, 2010, VSA arts will bring together artists, educators, researchers, and policy makers with disabilities from around the world for a multicultural celebration of the arts and arts education. Featuring visual, performing, literary, media artists, and a guest list that includes over two thousand participants from all corners of the globe.    Highlights of the Festival will include Dame Evelyn Glennie, the Scottish virtuoso percussionist, performing with the National Symphony Orchestra; internationally renowned educational innovator Sir Ken Robinson, the jazz stylings of Diane Schuur, R&B legend Patti LaBelle, Last Comic Standing season four winner Josh Blue, and renowned actors Claire Danes (Romeo + Juliet), andMarlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God/The L Word).  VSA arts will also convene an international arts education conference. Geared towards professional educators and working artists, the conference will focus upon advancing inclusive education through the arts and will host a career development forum for artists with disabilities. In addition to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, venues, such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Atlas Performing Arts Center, the H Street Playhouse, and the D.C. IMPROV, will showcase performances and exhibitions.

South Africa: Politician with disability forced to resign

Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille is under fire for “unscrupulously” preventing a leader with a disability from representing the party in Parliament.

Ari Seirlis accuses the arms deal whistleblower of being the mastermind behind a “fraudulent” scheme which saw him removed from the party’s parliamentary list to make way for her “crony” Joe Mcgluwa.

Seirlis is the national director of the QuadPara Association of South Africa.

“You (De Lille) invited me to join your party as number three on your candidate list for the National Assembly.

“When you didn’t perform as well as you had hoped ... achieving only four seats, you tried through your secretary- general Haniff Hoosen to bully me into resigning so that one of your old cronies could take my rightful place in Parliament.”

Seirlis further charged that her submitted a “fraudulent and false” resignation letter on his behalf. The letter bears Seirlis’ signature but he denies authoring it.

Seirlis says Hoosen made she sign two blank forms when he visited him at his home to persuade him to give up his number three spot.

Hoosen said he was “surprised” about Seirlis’s allegations. “We have absolutely nothing to hide,” he added.

De Lille insisted that Seirlis did in fact resign.

Sources: http://www.news24.com/News24/Elections/News/0,,2-2478-2479_2512587,00.html

&            http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=95244,1,22

Job Portal - A Step Forward for Persons with Disabilities

Did you know that there are over 16 million persons with disabilities in Pakistan? And did you know that majority of these people are unemployed and do not have a job? Did you know that Government of Pakistan requires, by law, every enterprise to hire 2% of the workforce from persons with disabilities. Did you know that there are over 65,000 private limited companies registered with Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) yet, hardly 1% if registered enterprises comply to these rules set by the Government?
BrightSpyre in collaboration with STEP (Special Talent Exchange Program) has embarked on an initiative to support people with disabilities seek better and qualified jobs within Pakistan and abroad. The Job Board was inaugurated by Mr. Zamrud Khan, Managing Director of Bait-ul-Mal, Pakistan. Mr. Khan in his speech talked about the need to influence the government to understand their needs and hoped that together we can prevail on the government to have atleast five seats reserved in the Parliament and Senate for people with disablities.This year, STEP and BrightSpyre will promote the recruitment of Persons with Disabilities (PWD) in all across Pakistan and bring awareness to the cause.

Mr. Atif Sheikh, President, STEP emphasized the need to bring people with disabilities into the mainstream by giving them employment opportunities just like any other individual. In his speech, we learned that Pakistan government first recognised the need for PWD in 1981 and only in 2002 did the framework was developed and adopted by the government. Still a lot of work has to be done including making places accessible to the disable in Pakistan.The ceremony was attended by the HR managers of leading enterprises in Islamabad.

STEP is a non-profit organization run and managed for the people with disabilities by themselves. It was founded by the Alumni of Special Education Centers who felt the need to form a cross disability self-help group. Students Talent Exchange program (STEP) was then conceived and launched by the alumni of special education centers of Islamabad in order to bring a change in the behavior of society toward People with disabilities (PWDs) in 1997.

BrightSpyre, is Pakistan’s first and largest job portal operating in Pakistan since 2002 with over 600,000 unique registered job seekers and boasts in excess of 2 Million page views for the jobs advertised through its portal. 

Source: http://ircd.net.pk/step-job-board-a-step-forward-for-persons-with-disabilities/