Welcome speech

Ann Hawker
Past President of RI International

Thank you very much. Thank you to the Nippon Foundation, to our partners within Rehabilitation International, and to my very dear friend associated with the Assistive Technology Development Organization who I know Rehabilitation International has had a long term relationship with.
I'd like to take some of the words that Mr. Ishii talked about, and I think it's really important that we're now in the phase of moving from talking into action. We have achieved much together, and I'm really proud and look forward to the ongoing opportunity of being collaborators, colleagues and partners as we take a further step in the implementation of disability inclusive disaster risk reduction. I'm from New Zealand, a country that shares very similar sort of events as Japan, I understand and very much have been involved in the development of disability inclusive disaster risk reduction. I think one of the things that is important is how do we ensure not only that we develop disability inclusive disaster risk reduction, but we also continue the dialogue with those who are involved in the development of mainstream policies, so that disability is no longer left out and that those lives of people with disabilities that are either lost, or one of the things that we have to remember is that disability is often created out of disasters. So how do we ensure that people can effectively live with a lifelong condition and that is where rehabilitation is really important. How do we ensure that the rehabilitation services are available? Not only do we reduce the risk, but we provide people with the potential to have quality lives following disasters.
So thank you very much. And we look forward to a very fruitful discussion. For those here in the room, for those who are connecting with us, we look forward to those practical applications as you so rightfully said Mr. Ishii, we're past talking. Now's the time for action. And this particular Forum I look forward to being the first of many in which we can work cooperatively together in making the Sendai Framework a reality. Thank you very much.