Pauline Etienne
10 December 2007
Port Louis — «Valuing people with disabilities has emerged from government's vision of building an inclusive society in tandem with the advent of the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.»
This is said to be the new vision of the ministry of Social Security contained in the National Policy Paper and Action Plan on Disability launched a few days ago. The idea is to fully recognise the rights and social inclusion of disabled people so that they can benefit from the same rights as all other citizens.
The access of people with disabilities to buildings and transport are among the main problems that have to be addressed. «It is only recently that the regulations relating to accessibility in the Building Act 1999 were promulgated by imposing the legal responsibility on Local Authorities not to issue development and building permits in case such provisions are not complied with,» says the report. The ministry thus recommended that legislative measures would be adopted to empower local authorities to ascertain that all buildings meet requirements to enable all people to access existing and future buildings.
Despite the policy paper on inclusive education, which is being implemented by the ministry of Education, «the committee noted there has been no formulation of a clear strategy to rehabilitate persons with disabilities within mainstream society. There is equally a lack of trained social workers who can clearly monitor progress». This is why the two ministries will work together to identify children with disabilities to be included in the mainstream or channelled to special schools and appropriate day care centres. It is also recommended that the teachers' training «include a comprehensive mo-dule on children with special needs».
The sector of work and employment is also tackled by the action plan. Now that the policy paper is launched, a monitoring committee will be set up in January next year, to review the progress made with the action plan at different points in time. The results are expected to be visible in about six months for the short-term decisions concerning the 40,790 persons with disabilities.
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