Adopted by the EC on 17 April 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa 

Rehabilitation International represents a network of decision makers and experts in rehabilitation from a wide range of countries around the world, including paying authorities, service providers and people with disabilities. All of them cooperate by sharing information and expertise to guide international and national policies. Experts who specialize in certain issues work together in several Commissions, i.e. the Commission on “Work and Employment”, which sets out the following guidelines for successful and efficient occupational rehabilitation worldwide. 

1)         Social tradition

Rehabilitation is part of the welfare state provision in each country, some of them articulated in the constitution as social rights. Many states have already ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). RI supports the implementation, mainly of Article 26 (Habilitation and Rehabilitation), which is closely connected to Article 27 (Work and Employment). RI believes that rehabilitation is best advanced through effective policies and legislation as part of a country´s comprehensive health, education and employment services for its population. The individual should be central in shaping their personal plan. 

RI calls for diverse vocational provisions, which take into account the individual needs of persons with disabilities and their relatives. National policies must prioritize access to the community-based open labor market including self-employment. Transition from sheltered work places to open employment must be promoted. 

2)         Economic value

Without specific preference for any of the various definitions of rehabilitation, rehabilitation means more than just wellness or medical care.  Access to services on a community based level can play a vital role in advancing rehabilitation, including integration into education, work and social life, as part of an inclusive and productive society. 

State, employers and employees as well as payers, like insurers, benefit from investing in rehabilitation. Research in many countries proves that investing one Euro in rehabilitation will return five. That means rehabilitation is more than “nice to have”. RI calls for a strategic approach to ensure rehabilitation services are funded and supported to deliver effective outcomes for individuals, particularly supporting participation in employment activities. National strategies and programmes need to include vocational rehabilitation with a focus on effective support systems based in the community and on statutory measures. 

3)         Holistic approach 

In order to be effective, Rehabilitation requires co-operation between stakeholders.  Governments need to address the full spectrum of needs which cross different ministries such as health, labor and social issues. They must mainstream goals for employers, insurers, physicians and other service providers for them to collaborate interdisciplinary and act comprehensively focusing not only on making disabled persons fit for all-day activities, but also fit for work – preferably in the open labor market. 

Payers have to collaborate among each other and together with service providers in order to avoid gaps between medical care and vocational rehabilitation. Prevention, co-ordination and a person centered approach to individualized planning must be intrinsic parts of comprehensive case management delivering best outcomes for individuals. RI calls for effective structures which support holistic assessment of individual needs and abilities based on the ICF (WHO), which can provide better quality of support for integration into the working life.

4)         Early intervention

Rehabilitation starts by identifying the needs and potentials of disabled persons at an early stage, in most cases during the conduct of acute medical treatment in order to open immediately a way back to work, preferably to the recent workplace. Since most disabilities develop during the course of an individual’s lifetime, particularly during working age, it is important that employers, insurers and physicians implement effective disability management policies and return-to-work programs (RTW). Each medical intervention and evaluation must focus on this goal. Employers also have an important responsibility in relation to health and safety at work-places and the welfare of employees, which must be linked to RTW programs. 

RI calls for effective policies and supports to assist employers in their engagement in rehabilitation, especially on the worksite level. National employment services have an important role as a source of effective support on workplace accommodations and effective disability management guidance, which must be based on a social solidarity and consensus between employers´ and employees.’ 

5)         Quality criteria

Rehabilitation in the broad sense of this paper requires criteria to define what services are high-grade or low-grade in order to define structures, processes and outcome elements. Service users, funders and providers must be involved in developing evidence-based methods, benchmarking tools or other programs of quality assurances as well as assessments, which indicate the time and the extent of worksite-based individual case management, including work-readiness. 

RI calls for the development, adoption and implementation of quality criteria on an international level. RI believes that, for the benefit of the population in our planet, occupational rehabilitation must be effectively and efficiently delivered within an outcome focus related to each health and social service measure. One example of global standards, which respect diversity, transparency and national consensus, supports people with disabilities is the Code of Practice for professionals in Disability Management (www.idmsc.ca).

August 1, 2011 United Nations Headquarters NY: The Open-ended Working Group on Strengthening the Protection of Human Rights of Older Persons began sessions on Monday Aug. 1 and will commence on Thursday Aug. 4^th. On Monday RI attended the sessions of the working group and co-organized a side event, with Human Rights Watch, Lifecourse Institute, National University of Ireland Galway, and Mental Disability Advocacy Center, entitled Key Issues in the Rights of Older Persons: Disability Rights, Access to Palliative Care, and Lessons from the CRPD.

During this side event, an interactive discussion addressing the intersection among disability rights, the right of palliative care and other rights that impact older persons took place. Synergies between the rights of persons with disabilities and older people including: legal capacity and decision making; the right to live independently and be included in the community; and freedom from violence, exploitation and abuse were explored and lessons learned from negotiating and drafting the CRPD were shared.

Speakers included: RI Secretary General Venus M. Ilagan, Dr. Eilionoir Flynn of the Lifecourse Institute of the National University of Ireland Galway; Mr. Eric Rosenthal of Disability Rights International;  Dr. Omolara Funmilola of the Burton Blatt Institute, Ms. Amanda McGraid of Human Rights Watch, and Ms. Mary Callaway of the International Palliative Care Initiative, Open Society Foundations.  Please find attached with this press release the Discussion Paper for the side event: Perspectives from the drafting of the UN CRPD.

For more information on this side event and the work RI is doing to promote the rights of persons with disabilities and older persons, please contact us at ri@riglobal.org, by phone 212-420-1500 or visit the RI website at www.riglobal.org .

The discussion emphasized the interdependence of disability, education and employment, and pointed out how the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) advocates vocational training, self employment and reasonable accommodations in the work place. Possible solutions to the high level of unemployment among persons with disabilities were presented and featured investing in inclusive economic development, recognizing and addressing the gender gap, protection against discrimination, promoting employer incentives for inclusive hiring, promoting inclusive financial services, capturing and building off of good practice examples, and greater vocational training and educational opportunities for persons with disabilities. Other topics addressed were Research on Economy and Disability and Disability, Education and Employment in Nepal. Both topics were presented by the University of Tokyo.

RI would like to stress the importance of inclusive education and labor programs and that it is working through the RI Commission on Work and Employment to deliver trainings, produce information and encourage return to work programs, promote the transition from education to employment for persons with disabilities, and illustrate the economic stability of an inclusive labor market. RI is also running programming inIndia providing vocational and marketing training, assistance with establishing small business and obtaining micro-credit, as well as capacity building around the CRPD for women with disabilities.

For more information on the work RI is doing, the Work and Employment Commission or our project in India, please contact us at ri@riglobal.org, by phone 212-420-1500 or visit the RI website at www.riglobal.org .

The report discusses disability under Chapter 3 – Thematic Priorities, Discrimination section, and offers examples of good practices on the rights of persons with disabilities (PWD) from the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR). The report goes on to discuss the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD); justice and accountability mechanisms; access to justice and basic services; participation in elections and decision making processes; mainstreaming disability; poverty, economic and social and cultural rights; management and fundraising of OHCHR; and OHCHR programs among other relevant topics.

In addition, the report puts forth OHCHR’s expected accomplishments and outputs for 2010-2011, but makes no specific references to PWDs. RI continues to urge the OHCHR to mainstream issues of disability into the broader human rights agenda and to include disability in all of its efforts and programming. RI experts, Commissions and members are willing and able to assist the OHCHR in any way possible, and RI will continue to attend key human rights events taking place at the United Nations as well as strengthen its relationships with human rights organizations and the OHCHR in order to ensure that disability is mainstreamed into the broader human rights agenda.

For more information on the ways RI is working to mainstream disability or on RI expertise, Commissions or members please contact us at ri@riglobal.org, or by phone 212-420-1500.

RI commends the report for its recommendations that governments develop inclusive sports programs, involving PWDs in the design, planning and implementation stages and calls for addressing barriers to full participation. RI has been working through its Commission on Leisure, Recreation and Physical Activities to promote the inclusion of PWDs in sports and recreation. The Commission strives to help communities and governments recognize the benefits of participation of PWDs in sports by stressing the importance of inclusion not only for the individual but for the community as a whole. Inclusive sports help to break stigmas, foster cooperation, showcase the capability of PWDs and promote integration all of which lead to greater inclusion and community development. It also strengthens the self-confidence as well as social and physical capabilities of PWDs. In addition, RI is proud of its work with the Paralympics and Abilympics committees to both help support the games and to promote the rights of the athletes.

RI would like to stress that all implementation of the recommendations in this report must be done in conjunction with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), particularly Article 30: Participation in Cultural Life, Recreation, Leisure and Sport.

For more information on this UN event, the report or the RI Commission including RI’s role in the promotion of sports and recreation as a tool for empowerment and inclusion of PWDs, please contact us at ri@riglobal.org, by phone 212-420-1500 or visit the RI website at www.riglobal.org .

The organizers have uploaded all presentations from the conference speakers to the webpage of the Atlas Alliance. Please click here.

From the web page above, you will also find links to interviews conducted during the conference upload at You Tube, or you  may access the interviews from this page:  http://www.youtube.com/user/AtlasAlliansen

 You may also find updated information, photos etc on the Facebook page of the Atlas Alliance: http://www.facebook.com/mobileprotection#!/pages/Atlas-alliansen/139780614704

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your continuing support and encouragement.

In particular, I would like to thank the call for support initiated by Stephen King, RNIB, and the DAISY Consortium for dissemination of accessible survival information in DAISY format for persons with print disabilities and wider community at risk. http://www.daisy.org/daisy-news#newsitem916

Our emergency rescue work in 440 square kilometers earthquake-tsunami hit zone still continues. More than 170,000 people are living in 2,000 shelters there. Many evacuees are welcomed by hosts across the country.

The death toll exceeds 11,000. Reported missing people is over 17,000. We are afraid of more missing people because if the entire family is lost there is no report of missing.

A national TV network, NHK, tries to capture voices and activities of those people in shelters as much as possible. Some of the programs report good practices in the hit zone such as a community group in Kesennuma who are sharing tasks of their shelter by “one task per person” with nice smiles even though they are sharing living space less than 2 square meters per person. We are sharing some hope encouraged by numerous good practices of people who lost everything but their human spirit.

Delayed graduation ceremonies are held by schools even in hit zone where the whole school is used as a shelter. NHK again broadcasted a moving ceremony for 6 elementary school graduates supported and celebrated by all evacuees who gave their living space in the auditorium to the ceremony. A graduate who lost her home and living in the school made an excellent piano performance and mentioned “I played piano to respond their kindness. I would like to become a kind junior high-school student.”

There is no rescue operation in 30 km exclusion zone of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant even though that is one of the most severely hit area by the earthquake and the tsunami. A news program reported an old lady who refused to evacuate from home to a shelter because she is taking care of her husband who cannot move around. There has been no life-lines in her area because of the quake and tsunami. Her area is also declared as highly dangerous due to radiation. No following up report is available. This illustrates the situation of people who are staying their own home because of various reasons including physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual and psycho-social disabilities. Asahi.com news reports the story of Toyo Gakuen, an institution for 200 children with intellectual disability and other disabilities, which is directed to move out of the exclusion zone, had difficulties to share with other evacuees. The Toyo Gakuen moved to a small independent facility now but children, teachers and volunteers are under extremely difficult situation. http://bit.ly/dUU8sb

The Ministry of Education announced that 670,000 textbooks are lost by Tsunami. The new academic year in Japan starts tomorrow, 1st of April.

Libraries and publishers share a general agreement on transfer of digital copy of copyrighted materials to help disaster victims without permission.

The Japan DAISY Consortium is going to establish a portal for DAISY contents distribution for disaster victims at large, not just for victims with print disabilities because we have a large number of foreign citizens who cannot read written Japanese due to complexity of Chinese characters in Japanese text. We are looking for PCs and projectors to be donated to ad-hoc classrooms in hit zone.

At Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, the 4 monster reactors are still not under control. Good news is the re-installation of electricity for each control room. Bad news is discovery of heavily contaminated water inside and outside of No.2 Reactor which from time to time exceeds its planned maximum surface temperature 302 Celsius. Supply of water is the only way to prevent “core meltdown” at the moment. However, provision of water increases the leak of deadly contaminated water from radiation control zone to the environment. Other reactors are not so bad as No.2 but are still in hi-risk situation. We expect tightrope walking situation will last many more months to achieve the best scenario ? cool down of all 6 reactors in the plant.

International Community strongly supports the work of our government.

Radio active substances are found outside of the nuclear control facilities. 30 km is exclusion area where radiation exceeds safety limit.

Even outside of the exclusion area, depending on wind and rain, many distance areas received radio active substance that exceeds safety limit for long-term effect. Children and those pregnant are warned sometimes not to take drinking water in those area. For several days, there was a warning for drinking water in major part of Tokyo. Today it is announce our drinking water in Tokyo is safe.

We are determined that the battle to control monstrous nuclear reactors should continue for many months with the highest concentration to protect our lives and global environment. At the same time we will give best care for disaster victims and reconstruct the community in the hit zone.

Provision of accurate and easy-to-understand information in timely manner is crucial for critical decision making for everybody. The provision of information need to be in an accessible format for each individual including people with print disabilities, speakers of native language other than Japanese, and those who have difficulties to concentrate on reading in this situation. DAISY and EPUB3, which will be coming soon, should take extremely important role for dissemination of knowledge for survival and well being under the threat of radiation crisis in Japan. Further report on establishment of the DAISY survival information portal will follow early next week.

Best

Hiroshi in Tokyo

———————–

Hiroshi Kawamura, President of the DAISY Consortium

http://www.daisy.org

e-mail: hkawa@atdo.jp

twitter: hkawa33

To give via credit card, you can visit http://www.j-payment.co.jp/lan/bokin/dpien.html?1

To give via bank transfer, you can visit http://dpi.cocolog-nifty.com/en/2011/03/we-need-your-su.html

The Relief Headquarters has information on their services in English at http://dpi.cocolog-nifty.com/en/

They now also provide information in the following languages:

Russian:  http://dpi.cocolog-nifty.com/en/2011/03/leaflet-of-russ.html

Portuguese:  http://dpi.cocolog-nifty.com/en/2011/03/leaflet-of-port.html

Korean:  http://dpi.cocolog-nifty.com/en/2011/03/leaflet-of-kore.html

I am sure they would welcome assistance with translation to other languages, if people are able.

Meanwhile, USICD continues to strive to provide news that we receive from Japan via the humanitarian response news page at our website:

http://www.usicd.org/index.cfm/humanitarian-response

We also have a new blog at http://usicd.wordpress.com where you can anticipate a new blog post on Japan early next week.

Please circulate.

Sincerely,

Andrea Shettle, MSW, MA
Program Manager, Global Disability Rights Library
United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD)
1012 14th Street, NW, Suite 105
Washington, DC 20005
ashettle@usicd.org
http://www.usicd.org

Fax: (202) 347-0351

Phone: (877) 535-0506

Dear RI members,

The best festival of the persons with disabilities in the world, International Abiliympics will be held at Seoul in September of 2011. Abilympics is the international skills contest for persons with disabilities and it was held first in 1981 to commemorate ‘”The United Nations’ Year of International Disabled Persons”. For the contest which already greets for 8th IA, skilled persons with the disabilities and other participants from 50 various countries are expected to participate. Various programs such as International symposium, Exhibitions-Experiences and Travel other than Skills Contests will be operated together in order to understand the culture and disabilities of each country.

We invite you to 8th International Abilympics Seoul 2011(IA Seoul 2011), the festival both for the persons with the disabilities and non disabilities. Please share the passion of contestants who challenge endlessly toward the world beyond the disabilities.

• Hosting Organization : IA Seoul 2011 Organizing Committee (Korea Employment Agency for the Disabled)
• Joint Auspices : Ministry of Employment and Labor in Korea, Seoul Metropolitan Government, IAF and RI
• Dates : Sep 25(Sun) 2011 ~ Sep 30(Fri) 2011, for 6 days
• Venue : aT Center, Olympic Hall of Olympic Park (Seoul in Korea)
• Website : www.ia2011.org
• Registration : Online Registration started through website from March 21(Mon) 2011.
• Contact

- For Registration/Travel/Accommodation: ia2011reg@kead.or.kr (tel: +82.31.728.7121(7336))

- For General Information : ia2011@kead.or.kr (tel: +82.31.728.7307(7208))

- Fax : +82.31.728.7092

Seoul Declaration for Vocational Competency Development of the Persons with Disabilities

Meanwhile, the meaningful declaration for vocational competency development of the persons with disabilities in the world will be officially announced at the closing ceremony of IA Seoul 2011 (please refer to the attachment). This declaration is established for the persons with disabilities to secure the high quality employment rights enjoying the opportunity and performance of vocational competency development and to promote more stable and responsible international support and cooperation.

The attached declaration is completed through the advise from RI and 22 organizations from 21 IAF member countries including RI, Canada, Netherlands and China already agreed to support or participate in the declaration.

We would like you to join the international solidarity which will be contributed to promote social integration and to reduce the world poverty with participating this declaration at IA Seoul 2011.

Please contact to Hyeonjin (Katie) Cho, hyeonjinc@hotmail.com, or +82.31.728.7208 for any inquiries related to the declaration or participation. We recommend you to sign the declaration by participating IA Seoul 2011 and you may send your intention in the participation of the declaration and the sign via e-mail and fax (+82.31.728.7092) for the case of unavoidable business.