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E-news for Week ending 30 April 2010

Welcome to Disabled Peoples International’s (DPI’s) E-news. Please continue to send your activities, conference information, and publications news to Dr. Cassandra Phillips at info@dpi.org.

MDRI and Partners Challenge Creation of “Holding Centers” for Children with Disabilities in Serbia

Serbia Mental Disability Rights Initiative (SMDRI), an affiliate of Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) in Serbia, has challenged the European Union’s decision to fund segregated day-care centers for children with disabilities throughout the country. The day centers “essentially amount to no more than holding centers” for children with disabilities. Local and international human rights organizations have joined MDRI and SMDRI in calling for the reversal of the day-care initiative.

The day centers are promoted by the Serbian Government as an attempt to meet human rights guidelines required for entrance into the European Union (EU) and are presented as an alternative to the institutionalization of children in large facilities. In reality, the day-care centers would serve merely as smaller institutions, devoid of any educational component and failing to develop children’s skills, knowledge or social inclusion. It is important for the EU and Serbian authorities to recognize that the fundamental objection to institutional care does not arise solely from the appalling conditions and poor treatment of children in large institutions, but also from the inherent characteristic of institutional care—its segregation from society.

MDRI first began advocacy work for children with disabilities in Serbia in 2004, leading to the release of MDRI’s Torment not Treatment Report. MDRI then created a local advocacy office, which is now an independent organization. To read the Report, go to

http://www.mdri.org/PDFs/reports/Serbia-rep-english.pdf

To read more about MDRI, go to http://www.mdri.org/

Persons with Disabilities in Sierra Leone

People with disabilities must be taken into account in Sierra Leone's development and poverty reduction plans, say the authors of a new study on living conditions of the country's disabled. The study was developed by the UK-based Non-Government Organization (NGO) Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD).

The authors hope the study clarifies the disability community's most pressing needs as the government and its partners rebuild infrastructure and social services.

While disability has received some attention in the years following the 1991-2002 civil war (during which thousands of people lost their limbs), the authors say little data is yet available about people with disabilities in Sierra Leone.

The study finds that in many socioeconomic domains such as material wealth and housing, persons with disabilities in the urban areas studied are not dramatically worse off than non-disabled. Sierra Leone is one of the world's poorest countries and eight years after the war living conditions remain dire for many. To read report, follow links at http://www.lcint.org/?lid=2177#b

People with Disabilities Left out of Contraception Campaign

Rwanda’s recent condom awareness campaign failed to include messages designed for persons with disabilities, something experts say is a mistake, since persons with disabilities are equally at risk of HIV as the rest of the population.

To read more, go to http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88761

Job Openings through the United Nations

The United Nations is looking to fill positions for Human Rights Officers in Bangkok, Geneva, Suva, Guatemala, and Colombia. To read all job openings, follow links at https://jobs.un.org/Galaxy/Release3/Vacancy/Vacancy.aspx