An estimated 650 million of this population is
living with disabilities.
A disability is
a condition or function judged to be
significantly impaired relative to the usual
standard of an individual of their group. The
term is often used to refer to individual
functioning, including physical impairment,
sensory impairment, cognitive impairment,
intellectual impairment, mental illness, and
various types of chronic disease. This usage has
been described by some disabled people as being
associated with a medical model of disability.
An Initiative out of WTDC-06
(Resolution 56) creating awareness & skillsto mainstream disability issues:
Equal opportunitiesfor Persons with Disabilities (PwDs)
Supporting member states meet
obligations under Article 9 of the UN Convention for Rights of Persons
with disabilities.
BDT & its partners develop
tools to assist countries:
Guidelines for policy makers & regulators
An
on-line toolkit for capacity
building, a platform to share experiences and best
practice
Ethiopia: Computer Training and Braille transcribing service. (Fully
operational)
Under this project ITU assists the ATCB by procuring the suitable equipment to
be used for training blind individuals to operate computers with adaptive
equipment such as speech synthesizers, magnifying hardware-software and Braille
displays.
The main outputs of this project are the following:
Suitable equipment is deployed in the centers identified;
Identified equipment purchased, delivered and installed;
Expert’s missions to train the trainers in the centers in the use of the
equipment conducted;
Awareness among the general public related to the rights and privileges
of the blind in Ethiopia in the usage of computers with adaptive
technologies through organization of events etc.
Mali: MCT Project for Persons With Disabilities "CyberHand" (Under
development)
The objective of this project is to assist persons with disabilities (PwDs), and
in particular the blind people, to access and use the information and
communication technologies (ICTs) and to facilitate the integration of this
group into the civil society (e.g. schools, professional activities).
Burkina Faso: Creation of an Internet Café for blind people, visual
impaired persons and design of a suitable ICT training environment.
(Under development)
The project aims to support the efforts made by the Government of Burkina
Faso for creation in a "cybercafé" open to all but with equipment and software
adapted to persons blind and visual impaired. This project also targeted on the
technical expertise in the field of ICTs for blind and visual impaired persons
in order to help them to participate in social and economic activities. This
approach should allow the blind and visual impaired individuals to increase
their chances to find stable employment and improve their incomes and their
conditions of life in the long term.
