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DAC E-Newsletter April-July, 2010

On Disability And Development, issue 2: October 2009- March 2010

Disability Sector included into National Strategic Development Plan 2009-2013

IDPD

Samdech Akka Moha Sena Pade Techo Hun Sen Prime Minister of Cambodia, opening the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and Cambodia Day for Persons with Disabilities December 03, 2009

Disability Sector included into National Strategic Development Plan 2009-2013

Excellency Sam Sokha, Secretary of state, speaking at national consultative workshop

The Master Plan on the Policy on Education for Children with Disabilities

Excellency Im Sethy, Minister of MoEYS at the National Workshop on the Dissemination on the Master Plan on the Policy on Education for ChwDs

Disability Mainstreamed into Employment and Health Sector

Excellency Sem Sokha, Secretary of State of MoSVY, and comprise of 80 participants who were representatives of line ministries, local, international organization and media agents

Disability Mobilization Mapping Database

The First Meeting of the National Disability Coordination Committee (NDCC)

There were 20 participants including Secretary General of CMAA, Secretary of State, Under Secretary of State from MoSVY, MoLVT, MoH, MoWA, MoEYS, MoP, MoPWT and Directors of DPOs and INGOs, and Representatives from AusAID, ARC, UNICEF and disability advisor attended this meeting

The TV spot on the IDPD and Law on the Protection and the Promotion of the Rights of PwDs...

1-The IDPD celebrated for the promoting the rights of persons with disabilities [Top]

Samdech Akka Moha Sena Pade Techo Hun Sen Prime Minister of Cambodia, opening of International Day of Persons with Disabilities and Cambodia Day for Persons with Disabilities December 03, 2009

Senior officials from ministries such as Deputy Prime Ministers, Senior Ministers, Ministers, Members of the National Assembly, Senators, Ambassadors, Development Partners, UN agencies, NGOs and students, and persons with disabilities and their family members, participated in the event with a total amount of 4000 participants. Participants enjoyed the sports, exhibitions, sign language, dance, drum performing, and concert.

In the event, the Prime Minister, strongly encouraged to draw attention on integration of disability in all aspects of the political, social, economic and cultural life in communities and also mobilize action to achieve the goals of full and equal enjoyment of human rights and their participation in society.

The main aims of the event were to promote the public understanding of disability, to declare the rights of persons with disabilities, to mobilize support for the dignity, right and well-being of persons with disabilities and to promote the implementation of the Disability Law and the UNCRPD. The International Day of Persons with Disabilities and Cambodia Day for Persons with Disabilities was also celebrated in some provinces such as Takeo, Prey Veng Kampong Speu, Siem Reap, Kep and Banteay Mean Chey province.

2-Disability Sector included into National Strategic Development Plan 2009-2013 [Top]

Under coordination of the DAC, the Inclusive Committee (IC); consultations, discussions and produced recommendation, statements and NGO position paper on disability were produced for submitting to the Government-Development Partners Coordination Committee (GDCC), Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF), and for presenting and sharing among the sectoral NGOs and development partners. In late 2009, DAC had co-organized five meetings to have further discussion on lobbying and advocacy for the inclusion of disability into the national and development partners’ development plans.

The IC is comprised of; the Disability Action Council (DAC), Cambodian Disabled Person's Organization (CDPO), National Centre of Disabled Persons (NCDP), Action on Disability and Development (ADD), Association of the Blind in Cambodia (ABC), Handicap International (HIF), and Deaf Development Program (DDP).

18 February 2009, the statement on disability was completed, after had been finalized by the Inclusive Committee, for submitting to the GDCC Meeting, by the NGO Forum Cambodia, a membership organization for local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in Cambodia, 15 March 2010, the first draft of the NGOs Position Paper on Disability Sector was completed, after had been finalized by the IC, for submitting to the 3rd CDCF Meeting, by the Cooperation Committee of Cambodia (CCC), a pre-eminent membership organization of the non-government sector in Cambodia, after the whole position paper had been finalized by the Inclusive Committee.

Due to a large number of sectoral NGOs position papers that will be sent to the CDCF meeting in 2010, It’s agreed among the coordinating committee to share coordination responsibility with sectoral NGOs to CCC, MEDiCAM and NGO Forum, for consolidating/compiling them together.

3-The Master Plan on the Policy on Education for Children with Disabilities [Top]

The workshop aimed to raise awareness and disseminate key information about the ECWD policy and master plan, with specific emphasis on the 12 major implementation strategies, identifying next steps for implementation with agencies responsible, and developing a communication strategy to identify target audiences, key messages and modes of dissemination.

Mr. York Sovan, Director of Primary Education Department of MoEYS, reported about the outcome of the implemented work of the Special Education Office of MoEYS on the statistics of children with disabilities, the master plan on the policy on education for children with disabilities preparation of training materials for implementing the policy, preparation of material mapping, training teachers on special education and organizing the workshop for awareness raising on disability and rights of children to educational officers, commune councils in provinces.

H.E. Im Sethy said that, education is one of the four components of the rectangular strategy of the Government; therefore, we have to find out the key problems and solutions in order to provide educational opportunities to the indigenous children, children with poverty and children with disabilities and change the sense of discrimination. Few of these children can access education, hence the need to promote inclusive education.

The first day (17 Feb 2010) of the workshop, a lot of activities were done by MoEYS such as presentations about the policy on ECWD, Master Plan on ECWD, Concepts of Inclusion, Disability Checklist and the roles of UNICEF, FTI, and DAC in implementing the Master Plan.

The second day (18 Feb 2010), the relevant ministries (MoSVY, MoLVT, MoP) made presentations about what each individual ministry was able to contribute to the implementation of the Master Plan, showed a video on disability and education, and participated in group discussions and plenary presentations about what should be done among relevant stakeholders at all levels from national to commune level in contribution to the implementation of the Master Plan on ECWD.

The third day (19 Feb 2010), the communication strategy was presented and then group discussions were conducted on how to raise awareness on disabilities among different target audience, and finally, the inputs were collected for developing communication strategy.

4-Disability Mainstreamed into Employment and Health Sector [Top]

This workshop aimed to lobby government ministries, development partners and entrepreneurs for including disability into employment and healthcare policies and how to implement the law on the protection and the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities.

Mr. Thong Vinal, DAC Executive Director, said that, to mainstream disability into employment and health is the crucial procedure of poverty reduction in Cambodia, by doing this, the protection the rights and benefit, discrimination reduction and ensuring the possibility to fully participate and getting equal rights in society, for persons with disabilities, will get better.

H.E Sem Sokha, Secretary of State of MoSVY, expressed that, disability is a cross-cutting issue, causes poverty and makes difficulties, therefore, to ensure effective participation on equal basis and poverty reduction, it is required to have involvement from all stakeholders; government ministries, NGOs, and persons with disabilities themselves, to put efforts, in order to create special services and include disability into the existing services provision.

During the workshop, participants were divided into two groups; health and employment, and each group, was divided into two groups; health service providers and health service receivers, and employment providers and employment receivers. As a result, participants found out the barriers of getting health services and employment, e.g the flow of information from national level is limited and the hospital and health care center does not have reasonable accommodation and sufficient skills to provide health care services to persons with disabilities, whereas in employment sector, people with disabilities are facing with three main barriers, attitudinal, institutional and environmental barriers resulting in self-discrimination, give up opportunity, lost self-confidence and depression.

Furthermore, the participants come up with numbers of recommendations; e.g persons with disabilities must improve the capacity by increasing knowledge and experiences that meet to the job requirement. The government should consult with employers to set the minimal criteria concerning to law enforcement. In health sector the government should allocate sufficient budget for health care services and the flow of information between the national level and grassroots level is interrelated to ensure that persons with disabilities can access the services provision.

5-Disability Mobilization Mapping Database [Top]

Potential problems include; overlapping Service Provision in some Geographic Areas, lack of Service Provision in some Geographic Areas, missed Opportunities for Partnership Development and Synergy Among Sector Stakeholders and damaged Relationships Among Sector Stakeholders Due to Unnecessary Competition in some Geographic Areas

In response to these concerns, Handicap International Belgium has created the Disability Mobilization Mapping Database. The aim of this initiative is to create a simple mapping output to be shared with the larger disability sector in order to create interest within the sector and encourage full participation in more complex mapping not only of the organizations representing persons with disability, but also of service providers. A second aim of this initiative is to create a visual reference that can be provided to mainstream service providers as part of a larger campaign for mainstreaming disability and development

Handicap international Belgium has created a database of organizations representing persons with disability at all levels of Cambodian society (including self help groups, federations, and provincial DPOs). As a result of this initiative, we have discovered that there are currently 1203 identified Self Help-Groups of people with disability in Cambodia, 29 Federations and 2 Provincial Disabled Person’s Organizations - located in Kampong Spue and Svay Rieng Provinces.

HIB has also used a professional Geographic Information System (GIS) to analyze the database and map the data. Through this GIS we can display specifically where SHGs, Federations, district or provincial level disabled people’s organizations already exist and display by color or other visual imagery additional details about each organization. All of this data is displayed on a Cambodian map so that it is easy for NGOs, government service providers, and other disability movement stakeholders to know about the location, size and activities of organizations representing persons with disability in Cambodia. Currently, 1203 SHGs, 29 Federations, and 2 Provincial Disabled Persons Organizations have entered their information into the HIB database. This is a first result, and we expect that there are many other SHGs that have not yet submitted their information to us. HIB will continue to update every year together with NGOs working in facilitation group of people with disability and also happy to share or contribute this resource to relevant stakeholders.

6-The First Meeting of the National Disability Coordination Committee (NDCC) [Top]

The meeting was coordinated by DAC. There were 20 participants including Secretary General of CMAA, Secretary of State, Under Secretary of State from MoSVY, MoLVT, MoH, MoWA, MoEYS, MoP, MoPWT and Directors of DPOs and INGOs, and Representatives from AusAID, ARC, UNICEF and disability advisor attended this meeting.

The meeting aimed to let the NDCC members understand the mandate of the committee, to promote the implementation of National Plan of Action for PWDs and the disability law and also to identify the six technical sub-committees.

H.E. Meas Vuthy, Deputy Governor of Sihanouk province, said that, physiotherapy is a very important profession in health science and this technique helps to treat a variety of pathologies.

H.E. Sem Sokha, the Secretary of State of MoSVY, said that, the physiotherapy services are very helpful for persons with disabilities as well as acute and chronic patients and he also encouraged and advised the physiotherapists to keep improving their knowledge and skills, in order to professionally serve the society.

The congress also included presentations on; the Law of the Protection and the Promotion of the Rights of PWDs, the Fracture Rehabilitation Protocol, the House Adaptation for Persons Living after a Stroke, the CBR guideline and the Dynamic Stability of the Lumbar Spine.

The following were the impression of the participants on the congress, “it was a wonderful sharing experience for me as a physiotherapist working in the health and disabilities sector; It allowed me to learn to the most current research while refreshing my knowledge in all areas; It was also interesting to see the displays showing the developments in medicine and technology; the lectures and discussion were well organized and interesting, and participants were very approachable.”

7- The TV spot on the IDPD and Law on the Protection and the Promotion of the Rights of PwDs [Top]

November-December 2009, DAC developed 13 minutes TV spot to highlight the strategies of the RGC to address disability issues and important messages from the King, Prime Minister and Ministers, which emphasized about services for persons with disabilities and the briefed the contents of the Cambodian Disability Law and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, regarding the elimination of all kinds of discrimination, rights to access health care, rights to education, rights to engage in the development plans, policies, full inclusion and employment in both public and private sector. The process of development of the TV spot was consulted with MoSVY, HIF and the Disability Awareness Working, and also got approval from minister of MoSVY.

The spot was widely broadcasted in Cambodian TV channel as follow: Broadcasted 2 times on National TV Khmer (TVK), Broadcasted 2 times on Cambodia TV Network (CTN), Broadcasted 2 times on Apsara TV, Broadcasted 2 times on Bayon TV, Broadcasted 2 times on TV 5, Broadcasted 2 times on Phnom Penh TV (TV 3) and Broadcasted 2 times on South East Asia TV (SEATV).