Financial Times

Discussion on access for the disabled in post-tsunami construction
‘Access for All,’ a campaign fighting for the rights of disabled people initiated by a consortium of national and international disability organizations, recently held a stakeholder forum in Colombo to highlight the new cabinet directive of “Accessible facilities for persons with disabilities” in all post-tsunami reconstructions.

The Cabinet Paper on “Accessible facilities for persons with disabilities” presented by the Minister of Women’s Empowerment and Social Welfare, was recently approved by the Cabinet.

With the objective of raising awareness to ensure proper implementation of the directive and to adhere to the above-mentioned legislation ‘Access for All’ invited many stakeholders including the Ministry of Health, World Bank, ICRC, USAID etc, the organisers said.

“We felt that a forum of this magnitude is crucial since there has been no dissemination of the directive or publicity on the directive which was approved by the Cabinet. We decided to invite numerous stakeholders to share best practices in implementing the new legislation.

Organizations involved in post-tsunami reconstruction work were invited to this forum and were very interested to know more details of the new legislation” said Attorney-at-Law Thanuja Navaratne, Project Co-ordinator of ‘Access for All’.

The forum was addressed by Dr. Neela Gunasekara, Director, National Secretariat for Persons with Disabilities on “New Legislation on Accessible Designs”, Architect Prasanna Silva, Additional Director General, Urban Development Authority on “ Framework of UDA in implementation of new legislation”, and Architect Amila C. de Mel from Navajeevana (a local NGO based in Tangalle) on “Cost Effectiveness of Accessible Design”. As a key stakeholder, Save the Children Organization presented a speech on “Practical Examples of Accessible Environments” while Thanuja Navaratne, presented an outline of the ‘Access for All’ Campaign.

The consortium of disability organizations consists of Disability Organisations Joint Front, Spinal Injuries Association, Motivation, Handicap International, Christoffel-Blinden Mission, John Grooms and Youth, Elderly, Disabled & Displaced Persons Unit of the Ministry of Health.

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