The 3rd Asia-Pacific CBR Congress

His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi, the representatives from Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the Govt. of Japan, Ms. Pauline, WHO, Mr. Matsui, President, JANNET, Mr. Sumitani, Chairperson, organising Committee and Mr, Akii CEO, APCD and distinguised guests and my dear friends CBR practitioners and promoters,

On behalf of CBR AP Network, I am delighted to welcome you all at the 3rd Asia Pacific CBR conference. I am really proud to see the great gathering from all over the Asia Pacific region and other parts of the World. I thnk you all for showing constant interest on the issues of CBR, CBID and rights of persons with disabilities by gathering together to discuss the progress, analyze new challenges and agree on next steps of our joint efforts to make our society more inclusive. Since 2009, we have eveloped a good tradition to meet regularly to share our ideas and find new and more effective ways of action, to evaluate the results and impact.

We started this journey from the first Asia Pacific CBR Congress, held in Bangkok in 2009, resulting in the establishment of the CBR Asia-Pacific Network. Then such dynamic activities as the CBR Convention in Malaysia, 2010, , the Second Asia-Pacific CBR Congress in Manila 2011, and the CBR World Congress in India 2012, have been organized within a short period.

I sincerely hope that these 3 days, this exciting forum will help us to share and learn from each other and it will prove to be an inspiring and truly transformative experience for all of us. We all are witnessing lots of positive developments and steps forward to ensure the inclusion of persons with disabilities inmainstream society with dignity.

I invite all of you to be open and creative in our debates and bravely present your approaches, ideas based on the best experience of your home regions. Once again I would like to thank you all for coming here. Your experience, expertise and readiness to share your knowledge and ideas are highly valuable.

Last but not least, I would like to thank the conference sponsors, and all the organising and scientific committee members for their year-long hard work and contribution for organising this conference.

All the best. Be happy and enjoy the Congress.

Thank you...