Activity Report from Philippines

Activity Report from Philippines

Life Haven’s Activity Report
APNIL Meeting
June 17, 2009

Last April, Life Haven assisted Mr. Edwin De Villa in organizing the
first Independent Living and Peer Counseling Seminar Workshop at San
Juan, province of Batangas. The workshop is the first major activity in
the municipality to organize and mobilize persons with disabilities. The
seminar workshop provides a venue for the participants to talk about
their own life experience and to learn from their fellows as well. For
the first time, persons with disabilities in San Juan assembled together
for the purpose of organizing them into a self-help group. On the same
month, Mr. Abner Manlapaz flew to Norway to study the personal assistant
system in ULOBA. The study trip is both informative and fun as I travel
with my personal assistant to visit the peer counselors of ULOBA at
their home office. The IL center model in Norway is very much different
compared to the Japanese model. In Norway, there is only one center
(ULOBA) who provides the personal assistant services throughout the
country. ULOBA’s services, which is based on the philosophy of IL is
limited in providing assistance services to persons with disabilities.
Their cooperative cannot provide the full range of services of an IL
center because their by-laws prohibit them to do more than what is
written in the by-laws. More information will be provided after Mr.
Manlapaz finished his report. In collaboration with APCD and SCIF, we
translated the DVD video about Nakhonpathom IL Center into Tagalog
version so that Filipinos can understand the video more easily. Last May
30, 2009 Life Haven and the Association of People with Disabilities of
Santa Rosa organized the fund raising concert dubbed “Live Free” with
collaboration of the Beautiful Gate Foundation for the Disabled in
Malaysia. The Beautiful Gate Performance Art Troupe is the main
performer of the event. The concert itself was great. Unfortunately, we
fall short of the target funds to be raised. Nonetheless, the media
mileage is great by itself. Aside from promotion and plugging of the
concert by different TV and radio stations, Life Haven’s activities and
services was highlighted by a major talk show program (Mel & Joey.) The
project “Empowering Persons with Disabilities thru Community Organizing”
has started. The funds for the project came from APNIL. Life Haven
printed its brochures. We started the survey to identify persons with
disabilities in four barangays. We have identified 158 persons with
different types of disabilities. Most of the persons with disabilities
we have identified are interested to be visited by our organization. The
next step now is to visit them to formally introduce Life Haven.

Edwin De Villa’s Report
Spinal Cord Injury Foundation and Life Haven, Inc. conducted a 3 day
Independent Living and Peer Counseling Workshop at Village Plaza Hotel,
Barangay Maraykit, Municipality of San Juan, a first class municipality
located in the Province of Batangas last April 2-4, 2009 for the United
Disabled Citizens of San Juan, an organization of people with
disability. This was approved and supported by Mayor Danilo S. Mindanao
through the Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office. It was
attended by 17 participants. Most of the participants are not severely
disabled but they are having their own struggles. After seeing severely
disabled people leading such an activity, most of them realized their
potentials, increased hope for a better life and learned the possibility
of severely disabled people to live in the community. The United
Disabled Citizens of San Juan intends to share the Philosophy of
Independent Living to the other people with disability in the
municipality and expand their membership.
Community Based Rehabilitation has been present in San Juan, Batangas
since 2007. Volunteer doctors and therapists from the University of the
Philippines regularly conduct activities in the area. They learned
about our activities in the area and they had a representative attend
the First day of the previous IL workshop. They have expressed their
interest in collaborating with the NGOs and the Municipal Social
Welfare and Development Office to improve the quality of life in San
Juan, Batangas.
I will be working for the Municipal Social Welfare Development Office of
San Juan, Batangas soon. Some of my objectives will be research and
proposal of programs and services for People with Disabilities. Through
the cooperation of local people with disabilities and the existing
organization, it will be an advantage to promote IL and provide the
services, though the economic status of the town may still set issues.
The Association of People with Disabilities ? Santa Rosa, An associate
organization of SCIF and Life Haven, Inc. in collaboration with
Beautiful Gate Foundation for the Disabled from Malaysia held a fund
raising and an IL awareness concert titled “Live Free” on May 30. Main
performers were from Beautiful Gate Performance Art Troupe. The
performers were great though we did not reach our expectations in terms
of audience and income. It triggered the interest of the people present
during the concert, and earned positive comments from friends and
relatives.

Report from Malaysia – Report & Activities Jan-May 2009

Report from Malaysia

Report & Activities Jan-May 2009
Society of Independent Living Selangor
Of Beautiful Gate Foundation For The Disabled

A. Activities
1. Hospital Visitation & Peer Counseling

Date Name Disabilities Caused
25/03/09 L Amputee Industrial Accident
15/04/09 S Spinal Injury Industrial Accident
13/05/09 M Spinal Injury Traffic Accident

2. Attending Meetings & Activities
19/5/09 KTM train LIFT LAUNCHING in Subang station

3. Volunteer training
April 19th telematch with disabled
May 1-3 VOLUNTEER TRAINING

4. Receive Visitor
25/2/2009 JICA

5. Organised IL Seminars and Workshops
Feb 28 invited by Welfare Department to talk on IL for staffs from CBR
centre March 30, organised IL seminar for PWDs in kuching = 22persons
April 4th, organized IL seminar for PWDs in sibu = 31 persons
August10-13th, will organised Peer Counseling workshop in Beautiful Gate
Seremban Centre, still looking for funding

B. Weekly Independent Living Program
Received Funding of RM 14,000 (382,363.06 JPY) from Welfare Department to
run IL Program. Details of Trainers: No Name Gender
Disabilities 1 Hee Yong Wah Male Quadriplegic 2 Seow
Boon Chan Male Quadriplegic 3 Yeoh Kee Soon Male
Muscular Dystrophy 4 Chan Ming Lai Male Cerebral Palsy

Details of trainees group I : Every Tuesday, 2pm-4pm
No Name Gender Disabilities
1 T.Y Male Quadriplegic
2 A.P Male Cerebral Palsy
3 L.E Female Unknown
4 L.H Female Polio
5 N.K Female Spinal Muscular Atrophy

Details of trainees group II : Every Wednesday, 10am-12pm
No Name Gender Disabilities
1 O.S Male Spinal
2 L.S Female Spinocerebellar Atrophy
3 B.P Male Spinal
4 N.K Female Spinal Muscular Atrophy
5 T.L Female Cerebral Palsy
6 P.Y Female Cerebral Palsy
7 T.N Male Cerebral Palsy

Letter from Pakistan

Letter from Pakistan

Dear Leaders of disability movement

I would like to share you a horrible situation faced by the disabled persons Pakistan. It is worse then the earth quack in Pakistan 2005. More then 3 million people from the war areas transfer to other cities of Pakistan most of them hosted by the public and there relatives. And a huge number of people are living in the camps. In the camps we found only 256 physically impaired, 13 visually impaired, 11 hearing impaired and 3 intellectual disabled persons. 3 disabled persons who had spinal cord injury died due to the lake of infections. No toilet is accessible, no priority camps set up for disabled persons.

Why?
Because of discriminations
Because no many assistive devices disabled persons have.
Because transportation is not accessible
Because disable persons are poorest of the poor
Because disabled persons are not empowered enough to love their lives and they believe that they are burden on their families.
These are the reasons we found after the survey of 283 disabled persons. We asked national and international agencies to consider disabled persons as human.

Today is the second day of our biggest achievement of Milestone history. We got opportunity to get a building of a school disabled person which was not in use. We cleaned it and make it the camp residence of Dip’s (Internally displace persons) PWDs.

Now we have 197 disabled persons and there their families. Their food is arranging by Pakistan Bait ul mall, Ministry of welfare and special education. We are going to start the counseling sessions with disabled persons and their families so when the will be back in their homes they will be strong agent of change of society. This one of the unique projects my life as well.

What we need?
We need the support from you in the shape of advices. Also we need your support to full fill this project as we no money for these activities. We are using resources from our families and friends. Also if you can put some influence to the international support agencies please ask them to consider disabled persons as well in rescue or recover process.

Thanks a lot .

For any inquiry contact me
Shafiq Ur Rehman
President
MILESTONE
479-omer block Allama Iqbal Town Lahore, Pakistan
MILESTONE H8/4 street NO 7 Next to Pakistan Bait ul Mall, Islamabad
Pakistan mirzasahab@hotmail.com

Activity report from Philippines

Spinal Cord Injury Foundation and Life Haven, Inc. conducted a 3 day Independent Living and Peer Counseling Workshop at Village Plaza Hotel, Barangay Maraykit, Municipality of San Juan, a first class municipality located in the Province of Batangas last April 2 ? 4, 2009 for the United Disabled Citizens of San Juan, an organization of people with disability. This was approved and supported by Mayor Danilo S. Mindanao through the Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office.

It was attended by 17 participants. Most of the participants are not severely disabled but they are having their own struggles. After seeing severely disabled people leading such an activity, most of them realized their potentials, increased hope for a better life and learned the possibility of severely disabled people to live in the community.

The United Disabled Citizens of San Juan intends to share the Philosophy of Independent Living to the other people with disability in the municipality and expand their membership.

Activity report from Nepal

Report Activities of Attendent Services
Submitted By: Independent Living Center Kathmandu
Submitted To: APNIL

Background:
In 2005 the political situation Nepal was not favourable to work in right based movement. The whole nation was suffering by the extreme phase of arm conflict and on the other hand there was direct ruling of King. In the leadership of seven party’s alliance the people of Nepal were in the preparation of peoples’ movement to liberate the country from the cruel claws of autocracy. In this situation CIL-Kathmandu also thought to show its solidarity with the physical involvement of persons with disabilities in the movement. In the April of 2006 all Nepalese came on the road for agitation against and CIL-Kathmandu also showed its adventurous contribution in the movement on behalf of civil society by involving PWDs in the great peoples’ movement. After the success of peoples’ movement this organization was legally registered in the district administration office, Kathmandu in August 2006 along with the changing political scenario.

Introduction of the Organization:
Independent Living Center (CIL-Kathmandu) is completely non-profitable and non political self help organization entirely run by persons with disabilities. This is a non governmental organization established to work for the promotion and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities (PWDs) through the concept of independent living. The term eIndependent Livingf as defined by people with disabilities does not mean doing things for yourself, or living on your own. It means having choice and control over the assistance and/or equipment/assistive devices needed for daily life and having access to amenities that society has to offer such as housing, transport, health services, employment, as well as entertainment, education and training opportunities. Independent Living (IL) is a vision, a philosophy and a movement of persons with disabilities to promote and protect the human rights of PWDs. It interprets disability in social model and rights based approach. CIL-Kathmandu has been working basically in policy advocacy for increasing the participation of PWDs in the decision making
process, peer counseling to the disabled persons, personal assistant services (PAS), independent living program (ILP) in terms of training on daily living skills etc.

Project Attendants’ production and disability awareness programs for university students:
There was very strong and vital support of university students in IL movements of US and Japan. University students are always powerful agents to change the society. And, to include such a force in IL movements can be very rewarding and double advantages for the PWDs and PWDs movements. This concept was realized very early by CIL-Kathmandu but it did remain for a long time as unfulfilled dream. After a long time CIL-Kathmandu is proud to start this program. This dream became reality by very meaningful grant provided by APNIL. With the financial support of APNIL, CIL Kathmandu organized first terminal Attendants’ production and disability awareness programs for university students was successfully completed. The Project objectives are given below:-
1. To produced trained Attended
2. To give the direct benefit from the attendants service programs by helping them to their daily living activities and decision making process.
3. To establish the attendant’s services programs as the part of social security system of nation by which both society as well as IL centre would be benefit.
4. To aware about the disability issues in college level students so as to make the issues as concern as general public.
5. To expand IL philosophy and to intervene in its core activities differencing its vision and philosophy
than others.

Activity 1-
Orientation for the students at Patan Multiple College:
The first term of the program was conducted at Patan Multiple Campus on date 26 February, 2009. There were all about 70 students who actively take part in the programs. The resources persons from CIL-Kathmandu are Mr. Tek Bahadur Gurung, Mr. Bhoj Raj Shrestha, Krishna Cahudhary, Deepak K.C and attendant coordinator Mr. Ramesh Neupane. In the program Mr. Bhoj Raj Shrestha gave his well-come speech and share different aspects of disabilities issues like who is disabled, what is disability, different kind of disability and situation of disability in our own society. Mr. Tek Bahadur Gurung explained the purpose of the programs and explained the activities of CIL-Kathmandu and Mr. Deepak K.C explained the IL philosophy and his experiences of Japan. On the other hand Mr. Ramesh Neupane shared his own experience as attendants very skillfully-like what was his first experience by seeing the person seating in wheelchair, his gradual friendship with disabled people and what motivated him to be attendant. The program was conducted all about 2 hours and finished with tea and snacks break. Some of new things we found after the programs were;
1. So many students said that it was their first experience to have face to face interaction with disabled people.
2. The programs became very good platform to link student union body, University administration and IL that is every helpful to conduct programs in future.
3. Many students showed their keen interest to work with disability.
4. The program made easy environments to start barrier-free campaign in university compound with
help of different student union body.

Activity 2-
Interviewed of the Potential Candidates:
In the second part of the program, there were about 9 selected students out of 70 students after screening. The program was conducted on date 5th March, 2009. The resources people were Mr. Krishna Gautam, Mr. Krishna Chudhary and Ramesh Neupane.

The Following objectives were accepted from the programs:
-To give the detail information about IL philosophy and to increase their
interest about IL Concept.
- To give the orientation about IL activities and to show them the office environments.
- To make familiar about other office staffs and the official system. Mr. Gautam was main resources
person of that program. He explained IL Philosophy, IL activities, attendant’s services and the activities of IL center’s work by giving more vivid and practical examples matching to our society and culture. On the other hand Krishna Chaudhary explained the disabled movement history, the role played by disabled people in majors’ democratic movement of nation and the acceptation from young student to change the society for all. At last all the participants visited office and introduced with other office staffs of CIL-Kathmandu.

Activity 3-
Attendents Training:
27th March, 2009. The aim of the third part of program was to give the live and practical examples and experience about the attendants services. CIL-Kathmandu felt very lucky to say that we got a very good resources person from Japan, Mr. Tanaka, attendant of Partner Association of Japan during his private visit of Nepal. All the 5 attendants got a very good opportunity to learn the various skill like
?how to bedding, toileting clothing, different mobility training with wheelchair, cooking etc. During the programs Mr. Tanaka did not only teach the skill but also shared his experience of his experience in attendants service carrier, his felling and explained about different interesting event of IL movement of Japan like BUS JACK in Japanese Disability movement history. Similarly, Krishna Gautam explained about the importance of attendent services in the daily living of PWDs. The role module of the training was Mr. Dependra Shakya, persons with severe disability by Cerebral Palsy.

Activity 4-
Mobilization of the Attendants:
The final part of the program was all about to employ all the qualified and trained candidates as attendants. Now they are performing their duties as part time basics in different events. Their present
performances are good. The attendant’s services coordinating and quality maintaining committee is continuously watching their performance and trying to give them the right direction and parallel skill-up programs for consumers. Ther are 5 part time attendents are used to give direct services to the persons with severe disabilities. About 7 PWDs are getting attendents for the daily living activities such as recreation, shopping, toileting and office activities. Severe Persons with Disabilities are enjoying their daily life some how. They are raising their voice to have full time attendent services and demanding the government for fulfillment of their voice.

Conclusion:
The programs can be considered as very good and effective to realize the true aspect of IL activities. But on the other hand there are still rooms for improvement while doing the programs in University. The time factors are very important while doing the orientation programs so it is wise to find out the good time so that more students could participate. As there is still not any government system, policy or grand for the attendants services a very big challenges is just in front of CIL-Kathmandu for the sustainability of attendant’s services programs and to find the other alternative ways.

Prepared by:
CIL Kathmandu