japanese

Maldives

Country Status Report for the RNN Conference to be held in Japan, Osaka

Mr. Ijazulla A. Ali, founder member of Care Society

A. National disability statistics (prevalence of persons with disabilities).

It is difficult to state statistics regarding persons with disabilities in the Maldives, as an appropriate survey yet to be done. The information were collected in 1981 and in 2002. According to 2002 census we have a total of 4,728 persons (not an appropriate number) with disabilities in the country.

Common people would call a person with disability as "nukulhe dey meehun", which means, "disabled person". Although at Care Society and some of the government offices we use the term persons with special needs, few people in the community understand it. People with mental illness are commonly referred as "crazy people" even though they are also considered as PWDs by some of the people active in the area of disability.

Therefore, according to the limited information we have regarding the number of people with disabilities in the Maldives, we have;

Census 2002

B. Overall status of the life of PWDs in your country

(B-1) What is the most urgent need of PWDs in your country?

The most urgent need of PWDs in Maldives is lack of accessibility in the national education sector and lack of rehabilitation services for PWDs. Although education is wide spread across the country, the schools do not have a proper environment and resources for PWDS to get education accept for limited access for children in the capital island of Male' where the government have special classes in Jamaludheen School. However, Care Society also provides special education services in Male' which is so far limited to 40 children and young adults. We provide special education with rehabilitation and other social integration programme with full participation of their families. Thus our programme is focused to children with severe disabilities.

However, so far PWDs in the island communities of 200 are not being provided of such services. Therefore, it is our priority to start CBR programme in the islands. The first CBR workshop would be held in Addu Atolls in the first week of September 2002. This would be the beginning of series of workshops in the islands. We intend to empower the communities to take ownership of CBR activities in their respective island communities.

How do you evaluate the situation of PWD participation of society?

(:) less than 5%

Less than 5% of PWDs participate in the community. However we have no statistics to support this argument. The government has plans to survey nationally the needs of PWDs at the end of 2002 and hopefully we would able to give you a better of the status of PWDs in Maldives.

There are few persons with disabilities who participate in the social and economic development of their society. Often those few people are from affordable families who got their children send to institutions out side the country. Families who cannot afford to send their children abroad are deprived from physical and mental development opportunities and thus their participation in the society are very limited.

(B-4) When do you expect your PWDS to get into the mainstreaming of society?

Care Society has long term strategic plans and thus we hope that opportunities for education, rehabilitation, social integration and employment would be available in Male' and in the islands through institution and community based programme by the year 2010. Care Society would try to achieve this goal with the help of government institutions and NGOS and families of PWDS and other stakeholders of Care Society.

We are going to start CBR programme in one of the 19 atolls, Addu Atoll in September 2002 and we are optimistic that it would address all issues related to PWDS and their families. The success of the first workshop would be implemented in other parts of the country.

C. Current priorities among disability policies and estimate budget for the PWDs

[C-1] Please write down five major achievements (and include year of achievement) of your government for Disabled Person from the inception of the Decade in 1993 up to the present. If you wish to add more achievements, please add extra sheets

The first special needs education class was established at Jamaaludheen School for Hearing Impaired Children on 16th Feb 1985.

During the past years this class has been improved very much. In the past foreigners have been playing key role in managing the class. However, they have already started to train local to educate the children in this class. The school also has announced recently finger alphabets for sign language. This could be the beginning of complete of sign language manual for the country.

Another class was inaugurated in the same school for children with physical and mental disabilities on 18th Jan 1998.

Considering the importance of this class the school has added new classes for children with physical and mental disabilities. However they need to train more people to develop means and resources to cater for the individual children's mental and physical status.

Care Society was established to work for the rights of PWDS in the country on 8th November 1998.

Care Society works for the rights of PWDS in the country. We play a major role in the advocacy and awareness campaign towards achieving a better environment for persons with disabilities. Our objectives have been to involve government, NGOs and families of people with disabilities in our campaign. Thus we need to work hard to acquire recourse both locally and internationally.

Care Parents Forum was established by some parents of PWDS on 5 December 2000.

Care Parents Forum is the only organization with parents of PWDs in the country. Their work has been to educate parents about disability and seek all possible opportunities to provide a better future for the children with disabilities.

Care Development Centre was established for rehabilitation and provision of Special Education on the 1 Aug 2001.

Care Development Centre is rehabilitation cum education centre for children and young adults with disabilities. We are the only NGO who started to train local in special education and thus create special educators who would help children with disabilities who do not get an opportunity to study in the mainstream education. We have so far trained 13 local in Advanced Certificate in Special Education out of which 11 are working at Care Development Centre and the other two in Jamaludheen School Special Class. We will be training another 13 local from the schools of the islands and Male who would help the school's management to cater for children with disabilities.

Provision of Assistive devices for PWDS.

The government provides assistance to acquire some devices to improve the life of PWDS in Maldives such as crutches, hearing aide, wheel chair etc.

Provision Visual Impaired Allowance

Government has been giving visual impaired allowance to all the people who are identified by Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Security.

They an allowance of Maldivian Rufiya 300 per month per person. Thus they have given in 2001 a total amount of Rufiya 50,100.

[C-2]What were most influential news or incidents for your people with disability and nations as well in your country concerning disability during this Decade?

I think, the birth of Care Society in 1998 was a very good reason for PWDS in the country. Since than we have seen considerable attitudinal changes both in the government and in the general public, towards people with disabilities. We have started to provide rehabilitation, training of PWDS in technical education and later vocational training, advocacy programmes to PWDS in the country. We are also going to start CBR this year. So PWDS and their families have hope.

[C-3]How many people do you guess in your country aware the existence of this decade? [i. Almost "O" % ii less than 1 % iii others %]

I think it is less than 1 percent. Although the ministries who were involved with the activities of the decade know about the campaign, not much was done to involve other government authorities and the general public. Hence, few people knew about the activities and its objectives.

[C-4] How many people do you estimate know the UN's Declaration of Disabled Person of1975?

Less than 1% people know about the UN's Declaration of Disabled Person of 1975

Do you have an official transplantation into your language of the above declaration?

[I-yes, ii ?no]

II. No, we do not have a formal or informal translation of the UN's Declaration.

D. The five top priority measure for PWDs for the next decide

[D-1] Please write down five priority measures or activities you wish your government will take for your people with disabilities for the next Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Person. Please add a sheet of paper if you wish to include more activities.

There are many areas we need to take measures in order to create a better environment for PWDS in Maldives.

• Constitutional rights for education, rehabilitation, social integration and employment.

• Laws and rules which enhances the implementation of constitutional rights of PWDS

• A designated Department/ministry which has a responsibility to demand for the rights of PWDS.

• Create a system which looks at the procedure, responsibilities, and accountability of various government departments who are responsible for PWDS rights.

• Provide special medical and financial assistance for PWDS under a separate scheme which has different scrutinizing procedures to the existing one for all needy people.

E. Needed areas for international cooperation

[E-1 Please write down three priority international cooperation programs you want to implement for the next decade in this region. Please add a sheet of paper if you wish to include more programs

• We need the international community to help to train local special educators to provide opportunities for children with disabilities in the schools. Often the scenario is that children with severe disability does not attend schools and those who have mild disabilities such as learning cannot cope up with the other children and thus would have leave schools due to repeated failure.

• Training of locals in other special areas such as Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, speech therapy etc. These expertise are very important to develop effective and beneficial programmes for PWDS. In the Maldives we do not have an OT and we have only one PT and ST. Therefore due to lack of university education in the country and the specialty of these areas we need to people at least two in each area to be trained.

• In the Maldives we live in island communities of 200 and thus community based rehabilitation is a very important programme for us. This is a new area and concept for us. We need to train people in community development who would work in their respective communities to empower their people. We also need resources to meet the need of PWDS in our country such information, symbolic assistance to the groups who effectively work for the PWDs development in their respective island.

• We also need assistance on research projects to identify possible causes of disability in Maldives. Maldives is a unique island nation where natural resources are very limited and people's living style is very different. Our main source of food has been rice and tuna fish. We hardly eat much vegetables making our children malnutrition. Therefore, such studies could bring new idea and hopes to prevent further more cases of severe disabilities.

4) Any related materials with report such as books, news papers, pictures, Videos and other audiovisual materials are very welcomed. (RNN would like to display those at the conference in October)

Attached please find a list of materials, reports, newspaper, Videos etc, produced and developed by Care Society for the awareness campaign of disability.

List of national NGOs working for PWDS are:

• Care Society

• Care Parents Forum

• Maldives Association for the Handicapped