Magazine

Lets stop a little and look back carefully

We commemorated the World Disabled Day yesterday December 3. I see that it is important to set up a day for disables to remind again and again the protection, privileges, responsibilities and the problem encounter by all disables in the world.

Disabled is not disable only for one day but it is an important deed to revive reminiscence of the disabled in the general public. Mutual Co-operation is an important feature not only in the human civilization but you also find it among the animals in the world as well.

It is a victory for the disabled people to work shoulder to shoulder with ordinary people in their day to day affairs.

Disabled when compared to the ordinary healthy person has some deformity of normal biophysical organ or activity that an n9ormal healthy persons do not have.

A disabled person needs special attention, help, assistance and dedication by an ordinary healthy person, therefore it is essentially important to have a good attitudinal relationship for disabled by the ordinary people.

If we can use this disabled day to speak about and find solution to the problems facing the disabled and to broaden the dialogue it will be a very good contribution towards advancing living standards of the disables.

Who is a disabled

Disables can be divided into two groups. They are either born disabled or become disable after leading a healthy life for some time. And they are categorized again as temporary disables or permanent disability. They could again be classified as physically handicapped, mentally retarded, child or elder or young disabled.

Though there is no proper census taken in regard to the number and affairs of the disables in Sri Lanka, to my knowledge there are about two million disabled people in our country. So it is our duty and responsibility to reform and give proper training and endow maximum independent and advanced life for them.

Social vision in Sri Lanka and the background

Very recently we have seen in many of TV channels how a disabled is being treated in society not by any other person but a person from the police (who are supposed to safeguard rights of citizens of our country). What kind of a brutal act to assault and kill a mentally deformed by a person whose duty is bound to maintain law and order in the country? We must have a change of social attitudes towards disables in our society.

We must start from scratch to have this attitude changes by social reformation and what we must do is that we must start this from the kindergarten of our schools.

Though we learn in our Buddhist texts in Dhamma schools about how we should respect and treat elders, we have not learnt to assist and treat disables respectfully. Therefore it is necessary and opportune for us to bring awareness to the children in this country to respect and treat them equally in the society.

Though we are a nation having a good culture, if we do not bring about the reforms, eq2uality and human rights between disables and ordinary people, we will not be able to take away deep rooted ideas and thoughts which are quite contrary to the improvement of the life of the disabled.

The tradition of socializing of the high qualities should be taken from the western world. The Westerns bear more advanced concept in treat8ing disables. It is a challenge to have such social revolution but that can be done. It is not a process that needs millions and millions of rupees. We must be able to look at a thing precisely and to make it suitable to us. For that purpose we the disables and able should take initiative.

Problems face by disabled in Sri Lanka

Compare to developed countries the problems face by disabled in developing countries is common thing. But in developed countries they are given first place treat to the disabled. Nature of problems disabled face depend on the state of economic environment that they are living in. In our country too we are experiencing that our people are gradually used to treat disabled with equality. In developed countries it is very often seen that disabled are given much privileges, rights and endowed with high living standard. This is a policy of the developed country. That also should be our policy. To make disabled to attend to their affairs independently we must provide certain facilities to them. In Sri Lanka we do not have much facilities as developed countries. We have to make large alterations, changes in the State's and Private Buildings, Common Places, Temples, Churches, Banks etc. and we have to improve the health sector and reforms paralaly.

What we can do for the disabled

When we consider about the disabled in Sri Lanka our attention must be first drawn to the area of rights privileges and entitlements. Compare to the ordinary person, disabled person is deprived of many rights and privileges. To avoid this situation we must be able to bring in new technology and other reforms to bring living standards to that of an ordinary person.

Mental reforms though is difficult it is of very much importance to a disabled person. To bring about mental reforms we need to have change attitudes and to have mutual contribution and understanding.

Legal background, Rights and Human Rights

Presently in the developed world, global community highly respect human rights and equality of people. The world community does not discriminate person on grounds of nationality, religion, race, status, complexion, disableness, etc and many States have entered into Charters providing first place and advanced rights to the disabled and also admit the right to live independently and to move one place to another. World Community admit that the disabled should have reasonable opportunities for day-to-day affairs as the ordinary person. In Sri Lanka it is instrumental step to have a Court order to provide facilities in all the public buildings for the disabled. We can be optimistic of the legal steps would certainly provides an environment for disabled to live peacefully. Further we should stand up to win rights of the people who became disabled for somebody else's errors or wrong. If these people can have a considerable compensation or insurance cover it will be beneficial to the dependant of the disabled. At present Sri Lanka has a legal setup to that effect but if the situation arise, as disabled being disentitled to compensation. He has no means to live in the rest of his life.

To make disabled contributory to the gross production

Majority of disabled could engage in useful earning activities, employment and many other acceptable activities. But it is sad to note that many Sri Lankan disabled are not engage in contributing to national economy. They should be properly reformed to be employed or to be engaged in serving the country. And earn something for their living. All disabled should be provided with employment according to their ability and skill so that they can live without expecting any sympathy from the others. To expect sympathy or to depend on others is a bad precendency.

There are many disables local and foreign who have come up in their life by social contribution towards their reforms.

Welfare and Aids

There are many social organizations set up for and behalf of disables. Their contributions towards disables are enormous. There are so many non governmental organizations through which enormous funds are made available for reforms of disables in the world. In Sri Lanka we have so many organizations which are looking into many aspects of the disables. My personal view is that these organizations should operate which the patronage of the State and I do not see that the management of funds are properly made use of or accounted for. Reasons for this that the organizations have become money earning institutions with the passage of time. This shows that need of attitudinal change as I stated earlier.

Firstly we should have proper census of all disables live in Sri Lanka and bring them soon under one umbrella. The mushroom organizations who are operating in Sri Lanka should be brought in for one objective in one aim of providing requirements of the disables and then it would facilitate and open eyes of the society in regards to the plight of the disables and in that to win demands of them.

On this day of world disables we should deeply and analytically consider the aforesaid facts and determine to have a really favourable environment for the disabled.

Samitha Samanmali, Faculty of Medicine