 |
Regional Workshop on the Empowerment of Persons with Intellectual
Disabilities and their Families in Asia and the Pacific |
|
List of Participants (for Participants only) Organized by: UN ESCAP |
|
|||||||||||||||
| Quick Links: |
The objectives of the Regional Workshop are twofold:
During the last five years, the importance of paying more attentions to the issues of persons with intellectual disabilities and their families has been recognized within a global discourse on disability, in particular, during the drafting process of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Both family members and persons with intellectual disabilities are increasingly promoting a value of and ways and means for choice-based decision-making and community-based living for persons with intellectual disabilities.
There are, however, issues that need attention. According to the 2006 ESCAP publication, Disability at a Glance: a Profile of 28 Countries and Areas in Asia and the Pacific, some Governments in the region do not clearly differentiate persons with intellectual disabilities from persons with psychosocial disabilities in their categorizations of persons with disabilities. Many educators, employers, and policy makers tend to see that a society does not have to support intellectually disabled persons because they believe that they do not have any abilities to learn and live in community.
ESCAP collaborates with the CDPF to organize this regional workshop to raise awareness on these issues and explore policy and programmatic solutions. The workshop will be held in Shanghai, China, where the Special Olympics World Summer Games (international sports competition for persons with intellectual disabilities) takes place from 2 to 11 October 2007. As the CDPF is one of the ESCAP’s long-term project partners on disability matters and involved in the preparation process of the Games, the project will fully utilize the opportunity in which many persons with intellectual disabilities and their family members will gather from all over the world.
