New Delhi, May 29 (IANS) Around 25 leaders from several organisations working for the disabled in 15 states gathered here Wednesday to draft a charter on disability, which will soon be submitted to the UN.
The consultation's significance lies in the fact that disability was not included in the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and as a result, the charter will focus on getting prominence post the 2015 development framework.
The MDGs are eight international development goals that were officially established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000.
"Despite disability's correlation with poverty and illiteracy, it was left out of the MDGs, which was unfortunate," Javed Abidi, director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), told IANS.
"We don't want to lose the opportunity to be heard after the MDG's get over in 2015," he added.
The charter has been prepared in consultation with the 25 participants led by NCPEDP and NGO Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA).
"The charter has five recommendations which will be sent to the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) and eventually to the UN," said Pooja Parvati of WNTA.
"The issues include education, health, accessibility, livelihood and social security for the disabled these are the most important post MDG," she added.
Abidi further said that a high level meeting on disability would take place at the UN, Sep 23 and the activists would write to the PM to represent India there.
"There are one billion disable people in the world and 80 percent of them live in India we should take up this issue at the international level," said Abidi.
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