Peter Tan – The Digital Awakening
Living One Day At A Time
The Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia has become very efficient as compared to the last time when I renewed my passport in 1995. I applied to renew that long expired passport yesterday and was told to go back today to collect the new one. The Jabatan Imigresen at Beach Street was a hive of activity on both days I was there. Although there were many people, application forms were processed quickly and waiting time was approximately 30 minutes. Perhaps that was due to the fact that there was a counter specially for people with disabilities, the elderly and children.
The passport is for my two-week trip to Tokyo for training on Independent Living in January next year. This training is funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as a follow up to the Independent Living Workshop that I attended in September. Two others were selected along with me for this trip. Two Personal Assistants (PAs) will be accompanying us. Wuan was supposed to be my PA but she had to pull out because of work commitments.
To renew the passport, I had to pay RM1 for the form, fill it up, provide 2 copies of colour photographs, a photocopy of my identity card and the old passport. As a person with disability holding the Kad Kenal Diri Orang Kurang Upaya, I was exempted from paying the RM300 fee. I got a Welfare Officer from the Head Office of the Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat Malaysia to provide me with a letter for good measure for the RM300 exemption when I attended the Disability Equality Training in Kuala Lumpur recently.
While I was impressed by the efficiency of the Jabatan Imigresen, its accessibility for wheelchairs is sorely lacking. The front entrance was totally inaccessible. The ramp at the back was too steep and dangerous. Peter was supposed to work today but took leave to accompany me to collect the passport as he was worried that Elaine would not be able to push me up that ramp. Although the building is old, a little more effort in designing a proper ramp would have made a difference not only to people on wheelchairs but the elderly and people with mobility problems too.
The 1st BAKTI – MIND Conference on ICT for People With disabilities was an eye-opener. Expert speakers from Australia and Singapore presented a range of electronic gadgets that could potentially help people with various types of disabilities. Speakers and facilitators were from Malaysia, Australia and Singapore.
MIND is the brainchild of Dato’ Dr. Zaliha Omar who had envisioned a resource website for all forms of disabilities that is truly Malaysian. She is the Honorary Consultant and Project Leader of MIND and was instrumental in organizing and managing the conference and the day to day administration of this project. This has now become a reality. The MIND website is still not complete. It never will be as information, technologies and treatment options are dynamic and will always be changing. Nevertheless, Malaysians with disabilities are now able to get information that are suited to our needs.
MIND seeks to empower Malaysians with disabilities and their families to enhance their quality of life through having access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) related to healthcare, rehabilitation, education, employment, adaptive technologies and equipments, transportation, barrier-free environment, independent living and many more.
This project is fully funded by BAKTI and under the patronage of Tun. Dr. Siti Hasmah who is the Chairman of the Board of Administration for Bangunan Bakti Siti Hasmah. A BAKTI Committee in turn oversees the MIND Project. Toh Puan Datuk Dr. Aishah Ong is the Chairman of this Committee together with Datin Noorhayati Kamaluddin as Secretary and Datin Seri Wendy Ong as Treasurer.
Here is a list of the Speakers and Workshop Facilitators:
Dato’ Dr. Zaliha Omar (Malaysia), Rehabilitation Physician and Honorary Consultant & Project Leader for MIND
Dr. Ramlah Sulaiman (Malaysia), Chief Rapporteur of 1st BAKTI – MIND Conference
Dr. Ow Chee Chung (Singapore), Executive Director of the Society for the Physically Disabled (SPD)
Michael O’Leary (Australia), Occupational Therapist and Managing Director of Spectronics, a company dealing with assistive technologies for people with disabilities
Tan Chuan Hoh (Singapore), Senior Occupational Therapist with SPD
Sarah Yong (Singapore), Senior Speech Therapist with SPD.
Liew Chee Keong (Malaysia), MIND Webmaster
Chalapathy R.H., (Malaysia), IT Management Consultant
Moses Choo (Malaysia), IT Officer for the Malaysian National Council for the Blind
Barnabas Lee (Malaysia), Low Vision Assistant at Malaysian Association of the Blind
Anthony Chung (Malaysia), Secretary of YMCA Deaf Club
Anne Laura (Malaysia), ICT Administrator of YMCA Kuala Lumpur
Eugene Lau (Malaysia), United Voice – self advocacy group for people with learning disabilities
Kamariah Mohd Amin (Malaysia), Down’s Syndrome Family Support Group
Peter Tan (Malaysia), Blogger
Participants of the conference were exposed to the various assistive devices for people with learning disabilities, low vision, hearing impairment and physical disabilities. Where such technologies are concerned, Malaysia is still way behind Australia and Singapore. This conference has created an awareness of the availability of such devices. The benefits far outweigh the prohibitive costs of such devices in helping people with disabilities manage their daily living activities, communication and interaction with their surroundings.
Dr Ow and I also had a brief conversation regarding the accessible toilet brouhaha in Singapore. He explained that his answer to the media was taken out of context. What happened was that his statement was selectively extracted to suit the slant of that article, which made it as if his organisation supported the unprohibited use of accessible toilets in Singapore. We both agreed that the particular entry was rude, offensive and uncalled for. We also agreed that if all toilets adopt a universally accessible design, there may no longer be a need to reserve one for wheelchair users only.
That was my first taste of a conference. This event owed it success to group of part-timers and volunteers who made sure everything was in order. I know for certain Dato’ Dr. Zaliha spent many sleepless nights befoe and during the conference to complete the necessary work. Within those seven days, I had a learnt many things and met many more people who have an interest in disability issues. Most notably is Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah whom I had the privilege to sit beside with during brunch at the opening of the conference on Monday. We talked on some of the issues that people with disability are facing.
Toh Puan Datuk Dr. Aishah Ong arranged my daily transportation. She arranged to pick me up from and dropped me off at the hotel where I was staying for the entire duration of the conference. Together with Datin Seri Wendy Ong, Toh Puan made sure that my special dietary needs were looked after by specially ordering a low-protein and low-salt meal for lunch everyday. I am grateful to Prof, as we fondly address Dato’ Dr. Zaliha, for giving me that opportunity do be part of her team and doing what I want to do – creating awareness and promoting disability issues.
With such high profile support from BAKTI which represents the wives of Ministers of the Malaysian Government, I can foresee better days ahead for people with disabilities. Although we are many decades behind developed countries where disability issues are concerned, there are evident signs that such issues are slowly gaining recognition in this country, especially from the relevant government agencies.
There is only so much that the non-disabled people can do to help. People with disabilities themselves must come out and state their case to enable the government and other authorities understand the situation better and hopefully, one day in the not too distant future, people with disabilities will be accorded equal status as everyone else.