RI Global: Office of Communications
Contact: Adrian Brune, +1 347-759-9501
Rehabilitation International participated very actively in the 2015 Annual Conference of States Parties (CoSP8) on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) held 9-11 June 2015 in New York City. RI President Jan Monsbakken was joined by Secretary General Venus Ilagan, Treasurer Susan Parker, Work & Employment Commission Chair Madan Kundu, Deputy Vice President for North America Mathieu Simard and RI Foundation Member Khaled Al-Mohter in representing RI at this year’s CoSP.
The RI President made an intervention at plenary following the opening for CoSP8 where he informed representatives of Member-States about the global work of Rehabilitation International. All members of RI’s Executive Committee and the RI Foundation Board, also attended the welcome reception hosted by Ambassador Oh Joon of the Mission of the Republic of Korea. Ambassador Oh is the President of the Bureau for the 2015-16 CoSP.
The RI SG was a speaker at a panel on global ICT in a side event organized by RI member, Korean Society for the Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities (KSRPD) in collaboration with the Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations. Ms. Myung Hwa You, KSRPD Secretary General, spoke about the plan to make the annual Global ICT Challenge initiative truly global by including more participants from other parts of the world. This annual activity was started in Asia and was participated by young adults with disabilities from Asia-Pacific until recently. RI Global is a co-organizer of GITC through a Memorandum of Understanding signed between KSRPD and RI Global in Warsaw, Poland in October 2014.
RI was also asked to provide some inputs into the side event titled “Bridging the Gap” organized by the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar and the Shafallah Center for Children with Special Needs. Former UN Special Rapporteur for Disability, Sheika Hessa Al-Thani, has asked the RI Secretary General, to provide some words in the meeting, the RI SG having been among those who attended one of the annual conferences organized by Shafallah Center in Qatar.
Prior to the COSP8, RI was also among the co-organizers of a one-day Civil Society Forum led by the International Disability Alliance and Disabled Peoples International. RI President Jan Monsbakken gave the concluding remarks at the closing of the session on 8 June 2015.
RI Global: Founded in 1922, Rehabilitation International (RI Global) is a worldwide network promoting the rights and inclusions of persons with disabilities (PwDs) through advocacy, habilitation and rehabilitation to achieve an inclusive world in which all people can enjoy full human rights.
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