Letter to my dear friend:
Thank you from the depths of my heart for the help you have given me. During one of my darkest moments, you were there reassuring me. When I was most frightened, you figured out what needed to be done and did it. When I just couldn't manage, you found a solution.
You offered your time, love, energy and even your money to help me with my transition learning to be a person with a disability. I will always love you for all of your help.
Now I have a favor to ask. You've taken it a little too far. I need you to stop, breathe and realize that I will be okay.
I know you are worried about me. You've watched my physical condition deteriorate. You worry about whether I will be okay, about how I feel, and about what will happen to me. I've reached a point with my MS that I'm pretty sure I'll be okay. I need you to reach the point that you realize I will be okay. Even if I never walk again, I will be okay. Even if I keep spasming, I will be okay. Even if I frequently experience pain, I will be okay. I will be okay because I still have a life to live. I fully intend to live it.
This is what I need from you. When I tell you I've started an exciting new project, something that speaks to my heart but also will take some time and energy, please don't respond to me with worry. When I say, “I'm so excited I've started this project!” I want you to say, “I am so excited for you!” I don't want you to say “Are you sure you should be doing this? Are you sure you are going to be okay?”
Even if you don't actually say these words, but I can see your concern and worry in your eyes and hear it in your voice, you are telling me to stop living my life. You are telling me to quit living and sit out. I need your encouragement to live my life.
When we go out into the world together, I don't want you to go as my helper. I want you to go as my friend. I want you to laugh with me, smell the flowers with me, and be silly with me. Please don't come with me as my helper, always looking to help me with whatever I might need, always worrying about something going wrong and ready to save the day. If you do that, I know you don't see me as a friend anymore. You just see me as my disability, an obligation, a bother, a responsibility.
I might need help every now and then. If I do, I'll let you know. I just ask you help me quickly, and then let's set that aside. Please just be my friend again and laugh, dance and be silly with me. I need you to pretend I don't have a disability. Sometimes we have to acknowledge my disability, deal with it and work around it. Please, please don't get stuck in that.
Sometimes we can ignore my disability. I can just be me, you can just be you and we can be friends again. Inside of this body that doesn't work so well, I'm still me. Look in my eyes and you will find me inside of here. That's who I want you to talk to and play with.
I'm still me.
Note to reader: substitute “family member” for “friend” as appropriate.
Writer of this article is Ms. Sandy Lahmann, published at Summit Daily News
17 July, 2010
Bangladesh: 50 Percent Children with Disabilities sexually abused - Recent Study
Nearly 50 percent of country's disabled children reportedly fall victims of sexual abuse with 91.1 percent of them by their family members or close relatives, according to a recent study.
The study also confirmed that some 38.38 percent of the disabled children were sexually abused in absence of knowledge about body language.
Bangladesh Protibondhi Foundation (BPF) and Save the Children Sweden-Denmark jointly conducted the study that showed the barbaric scenario about the condition of disabled children in Bangladesh.
During the six-month long study from October 2009 to March 2010, the parents of 216 disabled children (aged 7-18) were interviewed in six divisional headquarters - Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Barisal, Khulna and Sylhet - categorizing the disabled children as intellectually impaired, visually impaired, hearing impaired and physically impaired.
The researchers also collected data from some 535 adult disabled people, their family members, teachers and NGO workers.
The study reveals that most of the sexual offenders were male. Even teachers and therapists were found to be guilty in many cases. Of the victims of sexual abuse, 52 percent were girls and 48 percent boys - aged between 7 and 18 years.
According to the study, the rate of sexual abuse is even worse in case of mentally disabled children (intellectually impaired) due to their inability to express themselves or understanding the intention of the offender.
The study recommends increasing self-protection ability of the children with disability as well as making the concept of sexual abuse clear through specially designed counseling.
It also recommended counseling for the family members on how to better handle the issue and
undertaking capacity building programmes for the NGO workers to address the problem.
Senior Researcher Dr Selim Chowdhury told UNB that parents of the victims are not willing to go for legal action as the disabled children cannot express them properly.
He stressed the need for involving physicians and psychologists to help realize the disable children's body language in getting justice.
Dr Chowdhury, a psychologist, said: "We seem to have no concern about the sexuality of a disabled child. When a disabled child becomes adolescent, he or she has some biological needs. So, they should be trained in this regard."
He said the abuse happens due to the fact that the understanding of personal body parts, personal security and sexual abuse is unclear to the physically and mentally impaired children and to their family members.
"There is no adequate support, tools and structure in both public and private sectors to address the problems of disabled children in the country."
Dr Chowdhury suggested the authorities concerned to reserve ten percent seats in shelter homes for the victimized disabled children.
Referring to the sufferings of the disabled children living in rural areas, he feared that the scenario of sexual abuse of disabled children will be much worse in rural areas than in urban areas, as there is none to specifically look after the disabled children outside Dhaka.
Selina Ahmed, director of child protection, Save the Children Sweden-Denmark, said that the disabled children are exposed to a higher risk of sexual harassment because they cannot protect themselves.
She said intellectually impaired children are more harassed than other disabled children because they do not understand the difference between good touch and bad touch.
"As the disabled children could not identify the relationship status properly, the offenders take advantage of this."
Selina Ahmed noted that there is no specialized organization in both public and private sectors in Bangladesh to provide legal support to the sexually abused children.
She stressed creating awareness among the people to address the longstanding problem.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), persons with disability constitute about 10 percent of the country's total population.
There were nearly 12 million disabled people in the country, according to the 2001 census.
She said intellectually impaired children are more harassed than other disabled children because they do not understand the difference between good touch and bad touch.
"As the disabled children could not identify the relationship status properly, the offenders take advantage of this."
Selina Ahmed noted that there is no specialized organization in both public and private sectors in Bangladesh to provide legal support to the sexually abused children.
She stressed creating awareness among the people to address the longstanding problem.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), persons with disability constitute about 10 percent of the country's total population.
There were nearly 12 million disabled people in the country, according to the 2001 census.
The study also confirmed that some 38.38 percent of the disabled children were sexually abused in absence of knowledge about body language.
Bangladesh Protibondhi Foundation (BPF) and Save the Children Sweden-Denmark jointly conducted the study that showed the barbaric scenario about the condition of disabled children in Bangladesh.
During the six-month long study from October 2009 to March 2010, the parents of 216 disabled children (aged 7-18) were interviewed in six divisional headquarters - Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Barisal, Khulna and Sylhet - categorizing the disabled children as intellectually impaired, visually impaired, hearing impaired and physically impaired.
The researchers also collected data from some 535 adult disabled people, their family members, teachers and NGO workers.
The study reveals that most of the sexual offenders were male. Even teachers and therapists were found to be guilty in many cases. Of the victims of sexual abuse, 52 percent were girls and 48 percent boys - aged between 7 and 18 years.
According to the study, the rate of sexual abuse is even worse in case of mentally disabled children (intellectually impaired) due to their inability to express themselves or understanding the intention of the offender.
The study recommends increasing self-protection ability of the children with disability as well as making the concept of sexual abuse clear through specially designed counseling.
It also recommended counseling for the family members on how to better handle the issue and
undertaking capacity building programmes for the NGO workers to address the problem.
Senior Researcher Dr Selim Chowdhury told UNB that parents of the victims are not willing to go for legal action as the disabled children cannot express them properly.
He stressed the need for involving physicians and psychologists to help realize the disable children's body language in getting justice.
Dr Chowdhury, a psychologist, said: "We seem to have no concern about the sexuality of a disabled child. When a disabled child becomes adolescent, he or she has some biological needs. So, they should be trained in this regard."
He said the abuse happens due to the fact that the understanding of personal body parts, personal security and sexual abuse is unclear to the physically and mentally impaired children and to their family members.
"There is no adequate support, tools and structure in both public and private sectors to address the problems of disabled children in the country."
Dr Chowdhury suggested the authorities concerned to reserve ten percent seats in shelter homes for the victimized disabled children.
Referring to the sufferings of the disabled children living in rural areas, he feared that the scenario of sexual abuse of disabled children will be much worse in rural areas than in urban areas, as there is none to specifically look after the disabled children outside Dhaka.
Selina Ahmed, director of child protection, Save the Children Sweden-Denmark, said that the disabled children are exposed to a higher risk of sexual harassment because they cannot protect themselves.
She said intellectually impaired children are more harassed than other disabled children because they do not understand the difference between good touch and bad touch.
"As the disabled children could not identify the relationship status properly, the offenders take advantage of this."
Selina Ahmed noted that there is no specialized organization in both public and private sectors in Bangladesh to provide legal support to the sexually abused children.
She stressed creating awareness among the people to address the longstanding problem.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), persons with disability constitute about 10 percent of the country's total population.
There were nearly 12 million disabled people in the country, according to the 2001 census.
She said intellectually impaired children are more harassed than other disabled children because they do not understand the difference between good touch and bad touch.
"As the disabled children could not identify the relationship status properly, the offenders take advantage of this."
Selina Ahmed noted that there is no specialized organization in both public and private sectors in Bangladesh to provide legal support to the sexually abused children.
She stressed creating awareness among the people to address the longstanding problem.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), persons with disability constitute about 10 percent of the country's total population.
There were nearly 12 million disabled people in the country, according to the 2001 census.
15 June, 2010
Inaccessible Pedestrian Environment in Delhi, India
Shivani Gupta
Director, AccessAbility
http://accessability.co.in
In the flurry of preparing Delhi for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, Delhi has been revamped. There is the new BRT Corridor, the low floor buses, huge overhead bridges, accessible pathways and the swanky metro. All of these have accessibility incorporated in them. I should feel fortunate being a wheelchair user that now public transport and the pedestrian environments is accessible to me. But the unfortunate reality is that none of these so called accessible facilities are really accessible to the disabled and hence have not brought the desired mobility. Money is being spent in the name of accessibility but what we have really got are ‘teasers’. ‘Teasers’ being my way of describing facilities that are signposted as being accessible but are not usable by disabled people in reality.
Usability is the first and the basic requirement of accessibility and it is here that all these fail. Usability goes beyond blindly putting on ground accessibility standards, it is about how a user will actually interface with the given service/facility/
Just yesterday I went out on my wheelchair and thought of crossing to the other side from the overhead foot bridges that have been built all over Delhi. The bridge is about seven meters high with a ramp 89 meters long of 1:12 gradient to get onto the bridge and the same ramp on the opposite side.
In India most people will say “arre there is a ramp na to get on and off the bridge and that to of1:12 gradient, then what more do you want?” What they fail to see is that a wheelchair user will need to wheel two hundred meters, that too up and down a ramp to cross just a 10 meter wide road. So its 10 meters verses 200 meters.
Major Design Flaws:
- To provide a ramp to negotiate a level difference of more than 3 meters is impractical and not usable by the disabled and here it is more than double that height.
- A ramp to negotiate a level difference of more than 3 meters must have a gradient no more than 1:18 here the gradient is 1:12
- Landings must be provided after every five meters, here landing is provided after 40 meters.
I am sure even athletes using wheelchairs will find negotiating this ramp difficult!
Here I will also like to point out that accessible parking is demanded & provided closest to the entrance to ensure that disabled car drivers and passengers do not need to walk extra, but when it comes to pedestrian environments adding 200 meters to the journey is reasonable. Why this disparity?
A resent press release by the Delhi metro said that there ‘Delhi Metro provides wheel chair facility to old and physically challenged commuters at all Metro stations. On an average, 149 physically challenged people and 78 blind commuters use the Metro system daily’ and ‘On an average, it is carrying about 800,000 commuters everyday.’ Just taking the figures published by them it is easy to calculate that there are only 0.02% people with disabilities who use this so called ‘accessible transport system’ to travel.
The pavements in Delhi are been refurbished and most with tactile guidance and ramps at the beginning and end. The amazing part is that the guidance breaks whenever there is an obstacle in the path like trees, poles etc., hence ensuring people with blindness bang into them and majority of the ramps are blocked by bollards, through which a wheelchair cannot pass.
I wonder when will people with disabilities stop compromising and accepting shoddy solutions to improve access. The UNCRPD talks about ‘Persons with disabilities to have access, on an equal basis with others’ its time we demanded it.
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