2005-11-28
WFDB NEWS
No. 1, January 2005
The three years since the founding of WFDB and the entrance upon office of the first elected Executive Council, have been hectic, to say the least of it. Needless to say, this fact has delayed the issuing of this newsletter. However, better late than never…
EDBU
I will start the account in September of last year when I assumed my position as international secretary of WFDB. In the beginning of October 2003, the first and founding General Assembly of the European Deafblind Union (EDBU) was held and the first regional deafblind union was established. WFDB was present, through among others, the president Stig Ohlson, vice-president Daniel Alvarez Reyes and secretary general Lex Grandia. (for more information, please see: www.edbu.org)
African Decade
In November 2003, Stig undertook a trip to South Africa, partly to meet with André van Deventer of Deafblind South Africa and David Shaba of Tanzanian Society for the Deafblind to discuss a strategy for working within the framework of the African Decade on Disability, proclaimed by the United Nations. The objective of this work is to identify deafblind people around the African continent and to encourage the founding of independent deafblind organisations. In a longer perspective, the aim is to form an African regional deafblind union. DbSA and TASODEB are jointly responsible for the decade work within WFDB.
FLASC
In Montevideo, Uruguay in the beginning of December 2003, the second ever regional organisation of deafblind people was formed, the Latin American Deafblind Federation (FLASC). Sonnia Margarita Villacrés, member of the WFDB Executive Council was elected president of the new federation.
United Nations’ commitments
Lex Grandia is the WFDB representative on the UNESCO Flagship (working group) “Education for All” (EFA) where he works to make clear that inclusion is not the same as integration. (for more information on EFA, please contact lex.grandia@mail.dk). Lex is also a member of a working group on “A comprehensive and integral international convention to promote and protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities”. (for more information about the convention work, please visit the IDA-home page and link to “Background Documents” or contact: lex.grandia@mail.dk. You can also visit the UN web site Enable:
Another UN commitment is that to the Panel of Experts to the Special Rapporteur on Disability. The Special Rapporteur, Ms. Sheika Hessa Al-thani, is to investigate and assure that the signatory states to the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities comply with the rules. The Panel of Experts acts as advisors on disability issues. Each IDA-organisation has two members on the Panel and WFDB is represented by Sonnia Margarita Villacrés of Ecuador (regional representative for Latin America) and André van Deventer (national director Deafblind South Africa). The last Panel meeting was held in May 2004, in conjunction with the 3rd Ad Hoc Committee on the Convention. (for more information about the Standard Rules, please contact: lotta@wfdb.org)
WFDB has been invited to several meetings and has attended some of them. With the scarce resources of the organisation it is difficult to finance too many trips. The international secretary attended the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December. WFDB was invited to participate in a World Bank meeting on disability in May, but due to logistical difficulties we had to abstain. On the international day on disability, 3 December, Jamie Pope represented WFDB in a World Bank meeting “Disability and Inclusive Development: Sharing, Learning, and Building Alliances”.
8th Helen Keller World Conference and 2nd WFDB General Assembly
The 8th HKWC and the 2nd WFDB GA will be held in Tampere, Finland 3-7 of June 2005. The order of events will be the world conference Friday-Sunday noon, when the General Assembly begins and carries on until Tuesday noon. For more information about these events please visit the official home page: http://www.helenkeller2005.com/ or contact: Abstracts and applications for subsidies and other information: Helen Keller Conference 2005; Finnish Deafblind Association; P.O.Box 40 FI-00030 Iiris, Finland. Tel. +358 9 5495 3513; Fax +358 9 5495 3517; E-mail: contact@helenkeller2005.com For issues concerning the WFDB General Assembly, please contact WFDB: WFDB c/o FSDB; SE-122 88 Enskede, Sweden; Tel. +46 8 39 9155; Fax +46 8 659 5042; E-mail: stigohl@algonet.se, lotta@wfdb.org; internet: www.wfdb.org
Web site Updating the WFDB web site is the next project in line.
Relations
WFDB has close relations with many international disability organisations. There are close ties to the regional deafblind organisations, EDBU and FLASC and also to Deafblind International (DbI).
WFDB is a member of the International Disability Alliance, IDA, a network comprised by eight disability internationals: Disabled Peoples' International (DPI), Inclusion International (II), Rehabilitation International (RI), World Blind Union (WBU), World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), World Federation of the Deafblind (WFDB), World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP), and International Federation of the Hard of Hearing (IFHOH).
IDA represents more than 600 million people in the world with a disability and has the following goals: To identify common positions on disability issues and to lobby UN agencies together on those to which there is agreement; To encourage the membership of the international disability rights organizations to collaborate more actively at the international, regional, national and local levels; To develop joint strategies and inclusive positions on cross-cutting issues that affect persons with disabilities; To promote the involvement of people with disabilities in world politics on the world arena; To strengthen existing networks within which the international disability rights organizations actively participate. (for more information, please see: www.internationaldisabilityalliance.org)
Best regards,
Charlotta Göller International Secretary