音声ブラウザご使用の方向け: ナビメニューを飛ばして本文へ ナビメニューへ

  

An inclusive and equally humanitarian system for everyone including the Deaf and Deaf-blind groups

International Deaf Emergency

UNESCAP reports that people with disabilities are 4 times more likely to die when a disaster strikes than those without disabilities. Action plans to improve emergency preparedness and humanitarian response have been put in place for the general public yet Deaf Communities around the world continue to be marginalized and overlooked due to communication barriers, lack of qualified sign language interpreters, and weak literacy skills.

According to the World Federation of the Deaf, there are approximately 70 million Deaf people worldwide, with an estimated 80 percent of them living in developing countries with no access to education and only about 1-2% of the Deaf get education in sign language. The rights of Deaf people are often overlooked, especially in developing countries. Societal prejudices and barriers prevent Deaf people from enjoying full human rights; the major barrier being lack of recognition and acceptance, use of sign language in all areas of life and lack of respect for their cultural and linguistic identity. Particularly, the situation of Deaf women and children is weak.

In this sense, the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction is an exceptional opportunity to re-inspire and reinvigorate our shared commitment to humanity and the universality of the humanitarian principles with Deaf and Deaf-blind awareness. It emphasize the inclusion of persons with disabilities including Deaf and Deaf-blind persons at the centre of all decision-making in order to alleviate the suffering of those who are at risk of being left behind.

As international DPOs and sign language users, we work with key local Deaf and Deaf-blind DPOs in sign language for more effective and efficient DRR activities in order to reinforce national and local capacities, rather than substituting or replacing them so that we can support more resilient communities. We emphasize that the human capital investment includes diversifying and optimizing financing among the Deaf and Deaf-blind DPOs not only for humanitarian response but also for broader risk management, education, employment, accessible cities and reducing inequalities.

As the majority of Deaf in developing countries are illiterate because of non-inclusive education or parents wont to invest in their children preferred to send to work in agricultural field even no-existence school for deaf in rural areas. It is important to conduct first the organizational development, leadership, advocate with CRPD courses to reinforce the community before starting the DRR activities. In this sense, IDE secured the grants of $33,000 from the Disability Rights Fund (DRF) for 2014‐2016 for building inter‐capacity to achieve human rights of Deaf people in Haiti. 100% of this fund was distributed on local level with monitoring and evaluation by IDE. CRPD training was provided to 12 local Deaf DPOs by local team in which IDE trained. 6 were created in cities on rural areas. Once reinforced, they agreed to create a new National Federation of the Deaf in Haiti, the first in History. The national and local associations of Haiti are committed to reinforce and provide support to their local Deaf communities in Haiti by providing them training and education as well CRPD training. Also, they provided DRR training sharing good practice as to how to face disasters such as earthquake and hurricane more effectively. More 200 persons with disabilities were trained and around one thousand indirect which 50% were women.

The key to IDE's success is to broke the communicational barrier by helping those DPOs to collaborate with other DPOs such blind and wheelchair, aid organizations, governmental entities, and inhabitants. Such collaborations help keep the focus on improving the quality of life of Haitians with disabilities.

Our activities align with the core responsibilities put forward in the World Humanitarian Summit Agenda which will include; respect for international humanitarian law and protection, building resilience in protracted crises, response in the face of natural disasters, climate change and reducing their impacts, women and girls with disabilities' leadership and empowerment, humanitarian financing and investing in humanity and building the future of humanitarian action towards more effective, context-specific, and predictable responses with Deaf and Deaf-blind awareness.

The aim of my speech is to educate and empowerment local and national DPOs by encouraging longer term planning and investment, and greater coherence between humanitarian, development and peacebuilding actions in favor of persons with disabilities in the world. It aim to address accountability, leadership, and funding to ensure that humanitarian actions deliver equally for everyone including vulnerable groups. It emphasizes the realization for reasonable accommodation and creating more inclusive mainstream initiatives to promote full and productive employment for persons with disabilities by major stakeholders and States in humanitarian field. So people with disabilities are fully integrated in humanitarian actions, putting communities at the center of humanitarian response, to have a chance to live in safety and dignity and have the opportunity to thrive and not only survive.

On the other side, I am going at the next WHS at Istanbul as panelist of a side-event and hope to see you there !

Emmanuel D.M. Jacq
Executive Director
International Deaf Emergency
Emmanuel.jacq@ideafe.org
Skype: Emmanueljacq