Reach Out to Disabled People, Urges Shafallah Centre Chief

Doha, January 23 (QNA) - The Shafallah Centre for Children with Special Needs Chairman Monday urged the global community to reach out to needs of people with disabilities, particularly those living in refugee camps in conflict zones. Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA) today, on the sidelines on the second day of the fifth International Shafallah Forum, the Centre's Chairman Hassan Ali bin Ali said, "Forums like this one impart information and expose the hardships and the living conditions of the disabled people in various places. Our collective endeavour is to alleviate their hardships and improve their living conditions. We want to ensure that they have the rights to accessibility, care and proper conditions that they deserve." The fifth edition of the three-day forum, organised by the Shafallah Center for Children with Special Needs, is focusing on people with intellectual and physical disabilities under the theme 'Crisis, Conflict and Disability: Ensuring Equality'. "We are concentrating on the role of refugee camps this year. A well-made documentary on the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon and another one in Uganda shown on the first day of the Forum succinctly highlighted the story of people with disabilities," he said. The three-day forum, has seen the assembly of First Ladies, noted-dignitaries, policymakers, educators, persons with disabilities, leaders in the field and humanitarian relief organizations who are discussing the latest developments in inclusive emergency planning to ensure the protection and safety of persons with special needs during armed conflict, humanitarian crises and natural disasters. "The International Shafallah Forum complements one of the centre's mission to host international forums that gives a platform prominent people to discuss and debate the studies, assess current practices and share insights on topics related to disability," he said. Hassan Ali bin Ali mentioned the concern expressed by patron of the Forum HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser in the last edition of the forum on what can we do more globally on helping the disabled people. "Acting on her concern and guidance we decided to work with the first ladies and we formed an Non-Governmental Organisation called One Billion Strong based in Geneva from there we work to promote the United Nations Convention on Persons with Disabilities and work to make a difference in the lives of people with disability," he said. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is necessary in order to have a clear reaffirmation that the rights of persons with disabilities are human rights and to strengthen respect for these rights, the preamble of United Nations on this initiative says. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol was adopted on December 13, 2006 at the UN Headquarters in New York, and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007. There were 82 signatories to the Convention, 44 signatories to the Optional Protocol, and 1 ratification of the Convention. It is the first comprehensive human rights treaty of the 21st century and is the first human rights convention to be open for signature by regional integration organizations. The Convention entered into force on May 3, 2008. The Convention follows decades of work by the United Nations to change attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It takes to a new height the movement from viewing persons with disabilities as "objects" of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing persons with disabilities as "subjects" with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society. "One of the core programmes under this initiative is visiting refugee camps and the other one is signature programme," said Hassan Ali bin Ali. "We have interpreted the convention into a manual that the disable will be able to understand their rights under this convention. We are going to translate this manual into ten other languages as well in Braille so that blind people can also understand their rights and obligations under the convention. The translation project will start soon. "We are currently reviewing some of the articles to ensure the process is 100 per cent correct before we start translating at the One Billion Strong NGO in Geneva," he said. Talking about Shafallah Center's role, he said, "The Shafallah Center is working on HH Sheikha Moza's vision to care for the under privileged sections of the society, particularly disabled people. Our institution is concentrating on looking after those affected by autism, people having mild, moderate and severe disability. We have a genetic centre which works on Qatar's population, to genetically study the problems caused by certain diseases and we also have the Al Noor Institute for the Blind which caters to the needs of the people with vision challenges." Shafallah Centre works in partnership with various organisations worldwide including groups like Gulf Disability Society; Gulf Autism Association, Autism Speaks, Best Buddies, Qatar Foundation for Child and Women's Protection and Autism Arab Network Society. (QNA)