A long, long road to go for the disabled -Anthony Thanasayan

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Created On Thursday, 11 December 2014 08:18

Published Date

Written By Anthony Thanasayan

Category:Columnist

Last week, more than one billion of the world's population of disabled people - now billed as the largest minority group in every society of the globe - celebrated 'International Day of Persons with Disabilities' (IDPD).

This was on December 3.

Two major local events were held during the same time, in conjunction with the international occasion.

They left us as disability advocates with plenty to think about, when they were over.

Especially so, in the area of improvements and priorities, when someone decides to organise an event involving disabled persons.

Here are the "high and low" points of both occasions - followed by what can - and should - be done in future, for improvement purposes:    

1) IDPD Celebration organised (amongst others) by the National Welfare Department (JKM) and the Seremban Municipal Council of Negeri Sembilan (MPSNS).

• Spreading the IDPD cause outside KL:

This was a most positive effort by JKM. The IDPD message of disabled welfare and rights, badly needs to be heard in every state of the nation - instead of frequently in KL and Selangor alone.

Kudos to JKM for holding the event in the MPSNS. This will certainly inspire the municipality there to do more in terms of accessibility for its disabled residents.

It will also likely have a snowballing effect in spreading to other states, so that more disabled people and local councils in the country can be empowered through IDPD's events.

By the way, this is not to say that JKM has never held an IDPD occasion outside Kuala Lumpur. They have.

But the point is they should now start holding many more in every other state, before returning to the capital city.

• Wheelchair users' needs sidelined:

With more than 2000 people attending the whole day event (the exhibition from 8.30am and the official ceremony in the afternoon,) regretfully, not enough consideration was given to the physically disabled.

At least 10 members of the Independent Living and Training Centre, Malaysia (ILTC) from Rawang, Selangor, who came in wheelchairs and with walking difficulties, complained about it.

They said that unlike for VIPs, not a single car park was reserved for disabled drivers next to the venue.

In fact, they couldn't find any wheelchair-logo car parks anywhere! So much so that handicapped guests had to park outside the council's hall and compound.

Some had to park their vehicles as far away as a kilometre. From there, they were forced to wheel themselves, up and down steep slopes on the road, to the venue.

When some of them tried to park inside the compound of the council, they were promptly shoed away by the police. This caused unpleasant arguments to erupt - the last thing that anyone would want to experience in a day of celebration.

Inside, they experienced further barriers.

Physically handicapped guests were unable access to all the activities that were going on - simply because their wheelchairs was unable to get near them.

They had no choice but to sit at a restricted corner and watch the events going on in the council's open field. There was no fun in being spectators instead of active participants.

The disabled toilets were at least 500-metres away. There were no designated volunteers to ask for help in pushing their wheelchairs through all the distance.

At least a couple of disabled women even fell off their wheelchairs. This was because of the poorly constructed ramps in the hostile environment.

"It was clear the organisers didn't go all the way to think about our needs. They were obviously more interested in the able-bodied VIPs' convenience, rather then ours," lamented Francis Siva, president of the ILTC.

"How could it be a called a 'celebration' for us when we suffered so much - especially driving all the way that day about 180 kilometres from Rawang to Seremban, and then, having to head back home again?" he added.

"To make matters worse, the disabled senator who uses a wheelchair, was notably not present to witness what was happening on such an important occasion as the IDPD." Siva concluded.

  

2) The Fifth Asia-Pacific Network for Accessible Tourism jointly organised by the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) and Beautiful Gate Foundation in Selangor.

• Great part: Definitely, a most worthy event - featuring top global authority speakers on universal designs that include disabled persons in everything. With more than 20 countries participating (UK to Jordan, India, Philippines and more), this was an excellent opportunity for Malaysia to meet, and see, how nations and societies the world over, are rushing and working against time to prepare themselves for the increasing population of elderly persons - who will have one type of disability or another.

It was also a terrific chance for MBPJ - with several international and local awards on disability access and projects behind them (the latest one from Seremban's IDPD 2014 event), to showcase their achievements which they did at ICAT during site visits.

I heard the overseas delegates were pretty impressed with what they saw. Some of them commented that PJ had "outdone" some of the local councils in their own countries, in terms of wheelchair and blind accessibility in parks.

• Bad part:

Poor crowd, and mostly the wrong audience.

The key persons, such as representatives from the Tourism Board, government officials, local councils, hotels, architects, developers - simply weren't there to take in all the valuable information. They also missed, in particular, finding out about the latest state-of-the-art adaptable designs and facilities used by in other countries.

Their presence was absolutely critical if things are to significantly change in the quality of lives for all disabled persons in the country.

Petaling Jaya was also, perhaps, not the best choice for a pivotal event like this. KL would have been a better venue for far-reaching results.

The audience in the end - other than the international participants - was made up more of local and ordinary disabled persons and able-bodied volunteers, who are not in positions of authority to bring about changes.

One participant observed that it gave a more "day care centre" like event, than anything business-like or professional.

Finally; and curiously, the international delegates of ICAT were brought to a session of a local animal rescue adoption programme that featured a couple of paralysed canines on wheels, purportedly "to celebrate IDPD."

If true, I'm seriously puzzled by this.

What have handicapped dogs got to do with disabled people - other than the obvious fact of trying to get sympathy from the public, in order to fill up the animal NGOs coffers?

Or, is there a new disability-advocacy movement somewhere, which I don't know about, to also champion for "wheelchair access" for dogs with disabilities in airports, train stations, hotels and tourists' spots?

Whatever the case, the painful truth is, human beings who are disabled, have still light years more to go, for ICAT's noble vision to become a reality.