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Conferees recommend
ways to boost rights and
independence of disabled

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By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

About 125 representatives of disability organizations worldwide met in Honolulu last week with recommendations aimed at improving the rights of people with disabilities.

Lex Frieden, who organized the "Global Perspectives On Independent Living Summit" at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, said it was a follow-up to the group's first meeting last year in Washington, D.C.

"There is growing awareness among people with disabilities around the world of the need for empowerment and the need for self-determination by people with disabilities," he said.

Frieden speaks with authority from his wheelchair. He broke his neck in a car accident in 1967 and is technically quadriplegic. He can't use his legs and has partial use of his arms.

He is vice president of The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research in Houston and president of Rehabilitation International.

He travels a lot internationally and says, "I'm impressed at how people with disabilities in all cultures in all countries are beginning to realize their responsibility to be part of the decision-making policies (affecting them) in families and communities."

People in the United States have a great advantage because of the 10-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act, he said. "It has made a profound difference in our lives. It is much easier for people with disabilities in the U.S. to be part of the mainstream, so to speak."

Despite that, however, he said the unemployment rate among people with disabilities who want to work is more than 60 percent. "That indicates to me that we still have many barriers, both attitudinal and physical, to overcome."

Delegates at last week's three-day conference represented 14 countries.

The event was sponsored by the Japan Council of Independent Living Associations, the Independent Living Research Utilization and the Hawaii Centers for Independent Living.

Most countries represented, including Japan, don't have the civil-rights protection that Americans enjoy, Frieden said.

He said most of the conferees took an extra day to visit the Hawaii Centers for Independent Living and meet executive director Mark Obatake and his staff. The organization was founded in 1981 and is run by and for people with disabilities. It works as a clearinghouse of information, counseling and support services.

"You have an outstanding Center for Independent Living," Frieden said. "It's a model for the nation, and I think a model for the world."

The biggest problem he sees for disabled people is "acknowledgment, understanding, by people at large of possibilities for people with disabilities.

"In too many instances we discount somebody's abilities because they happen to have a certain characteristic or condition."

Frieden said the meeting ended with unanimous approval of a declaration to be be distributed to organizations for the disabled, professionals and public officials to help raise awareness of the issues.

It says, in part: "We accept responsibility for our own actions and lives and reaffirm the global philosophy and principles of independent living. All human life has value; every human being should have meaningful options to make choices about issues that affect our lives."

The delegates made a commitment to try to achieve a United Nations convention on the rights of people with disabilities and to promote disability rights, legislation and policies on an international level.

"It is important to have acknowledgment by the U.N. and to have a mechanism for documenting and addressing human rights violations against people with disabilities," Frieden said. "In many countries, it really is a struggle for people with disabilities."

Frieden said the Hilton Hawaiian Village provided "exceptional assistance" to the conferees and the city and state also were most helpful.