UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – turning 'objects' into 'subjects'

un2 The Convention follows decades of work by the United Nations to change attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It takes to a new height the movement from viewing persons with disabilities as 'objects' of charity, medical treatment and social protection

- towards viewing persons with disabilities as 'subjects' with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society.

The Convention is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, social development dimension. It adopts a broad categorization of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms.

It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced.

More here.

Macquarie University is surveying parents' views on inclusion

Dr. Kathy Cologon writes: This survey is for parents in Australia and New Zealand who have a child (or children) who experiences disability. I would like to hear from you regarding your experiences and views about inclusion and exclusion.

Exclusion can be defined as experiencing barriers to participation in activities or within the community. Exclusion can occur at an individual level (for example, within interpersonal interactions) or at a systemic level (for example, within educational systems).

Exclusion may prevent a person from engaging with activities they wish to participate in, prevent someone from going to particular places, or reduce or prevent a person from feeling that they belong or are accepted in a particular situation or with a particular group of people.

By contrast, people may experience inclusion. However, inclusion means different things to different people. In this study I would like to learn about what you consider inclusion to mean and how you and your family experience inclusion or exclusion.

Learning more about parent perspectives on inclusion and exclusion in regards to their children is important for teacher education and for informing policy and practice.

Please help spread the word. The survey is here - https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/X923FHW

The Accessible Planet .com™ - everything wheelchair accessible!

planet UK: Our aim is to become the complete guide to everything and anything accessible - for wheelchair users and those with reduced mobility. From personal experience - find out more about us here - we understand the importance of what 'wheelchair accessible' involves and how sometimes it can be difficult to find.

TheAccessiblePlanet.com™ is growing every day and we are confident we will soon have everything that you need.

Come along to our AGM to support our work on Community Research in New Zealand

4.30pm Monday 18 November 2013 in South Christchurch Library, 66 Colombo Street, Christchurch. You are invited to attend our Annual General Meeting in Christchurch. As well as standard AGM business we will:

Launch the new Learning from Christchurch special research collection. These new pages will house research on the experiences of communities and tangata whenua, community and voluntary organisations in the aftermath of the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes.
Announce The Billies - a new, annual research award. The aware will recognise great research using Appreciative Inquiry or another strengths-based approach. This is named in honour of Billie Foreman (1931-2012), our Co-chair Garth Nowland-Foreman's mum.

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