Abdullah Ahmad Badawi – Peter Tan – The Digital Awakening

Employment For Disabled People

The Star reported that the “Human Resources Ministry wants private sector employers to ensure that one percent of its workforce to be those with disabilities.” Easier said than done. Unless the issues of access to public transportation and the built environment is addressed, this will remain unachiveable.

Disabled people need both to connect them to other essential services such as education and employment. Without access to these two, disabled people do not have the mobility to go anywhere, including going to school and work. Without formal education, disabled people do not have the qualification and skills to be employable.

As I see it, the government is using the bottoms down approach in many disability issues. The private sector can allocate a 1% quota for their workforce for disabled people but without proper infrastructure to support the mobility and access, the quota will remain unfilled.

Truth be told, I am fed up with reading such announcements from the government every now and then. The ministers talk and talk and talk without seriously wanting to address the real issues faced by disabled people. In November 15, 2007, the then Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had called for disabled persons be given employment. Just last year, Datuk Dr. Ng Yen Yen who as the Minister of Women, Family and Community Development was reported as saying that “a task force is being set up to encourage more disabled people to work in the public sector.”

Has the then Prime Minister’s call been heeded? What has this task force announced by Datuk Dr. Ng achieved so far? Is this task force still in existence? Is the Ministry of Human Resource involved with this task force? What is being done to address the issues of accessibility to ensure that disabled people have equal opportunities to get an education to make them qualified for employment? What is the point of making available work opportunities when many disabled people do not have proper qualifications?

The head does not know what the tail is doing. So while the various ministries come out with idea after idea to get disabled people gainfully employed, the majority of disabled people are still stuck at home uneducated, unqualified and unemployed. I bet my bottom ringgit that a year or two from now, we will read of another minister announcing unfulfilled job quotas for disabled people.1Malaysia Boleh!

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Published: Tuesday July 28, 2009 MYT 1:38:00 PM
Proposal for the disabled to be 1% of private sector workforce

KUALA LUMPUR: The Human Resources Ministry wants private sector employers to ensure that one percent of its workforce to be those with disabilities.

Deputy Minister Datuk Maznah Mazlan said Tuesday that the proposal would be forwarded to the Cabinet soon.

She said that the Government was already hiring people with disabilities but said that even the public sector had yet to fulfil the one percent quota.

“Only the Welfare Department has a 1.8 percent employment of disabled people. Other departments need to increase their employment of people with disabilities,” she said.

Anwar Ibrahim’s Anti-Climax

Sixty more minutes to midnight and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has yet to show hand. No defection from the Barisan Nasional camp is forthcoming. Looks like his plan to unseat Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and topple the Barisan Nasional government has fizzled out. Likewise, his promise of forming the next government with him becoming the Prime Minister of Malaysia on September 16 will not be realized. This failure to fulfill what he has been harping since March 8 will definitely dent his credibility. Whatever he is planning next, I hope it will not create even more uncertainty. I am truly fed up with all these politicking and bickering. It is not doing the nation any good, especially in times of economic turmoil.

Can Datuk Seri Jeanne Abdullah Effect Change For Disabled People?

The Star reported that Datin Seri Jeanne Abdullah, the wife of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was touched by the disabled-friendly facilities she saw at the Paralympic Games Village when she was in Beijing to visit Malaysian Paralympians. Datuk Seri Jeanne is urging developers to design more disabled friendly housing projects, saying that the nation should do more for disabled people.

I hope this message will not fall on deaf ears. Disabled people in Malaysia have been facing such issues far longer than the 24 years that I have been on a wheelchair. Perhaps Datin Seri Jeanne is not aware that Malaysia already has the Uniform Building By-Law 34A (UBBL 34A) that requires all public buildings to comply with Malaysian Standard MS 1183 and MS 1184. MS 1184 is the Code of Practice on Access for Disabled People to Public Buildings. It specifies how accessible facilities inside buildings should be built. The UBBL 34A has been gazetted by the various states in the mid-1990s.

Sadly, this provision in the UBBL 34A is seldom enforced by local governments. Public buildings are still allowed to be constructed without fulfilling the said requirements. To exacerbate matters, there is no law to ensure that external built environment such as pedestrian walkways are accessible to disabled people although a code of practice in the form of Malaysian Standard MS 1331 has been drawn up for such purposes.

The newspaper report also stated that Datuk Seri Jeanne hoped schools will encourage children to help disabled people if they come across one and that we should change our mindset to be more caring. Although it is heartening to note that she is trying to inculcate a caring attitude in students, it would have been better if we can build a society where disabled people can live independently instead of depending on such ad hoc forms of assistance. At the moment, disabled people, especially those with severe impairments, are unable to practice independent living because of the prejudices against disabled people.

Society still hold on to the view that disabled people cannot do things for themselves and therefore cannot live independently. There is this notion that disabled people need charity to survive. These are all fallacies. People are disabled by the environment and attitudes, and not by their conditions. It is how we build things and how we perceive disabled people that is disabling. Malaysia has to move from the antiquated Medical Model of Disability to the Social Model of Disability in order for disabled people to benefit from a level playing field in society.

Medical Model of Disability sees the disabled person as the problem. It emphasizes the rehabilitation of disabled people to make them fit into society. The focus is on correcting the impairment rather than meeting the needs. Social Model of Disability defines the difference between impairment and disability. Impairment does not necessarily lead to disability. People are disabled by manmade environmental barriers and social prejudices. The Social Model of Disability advocates the restructuring of society to eliminate institutional discrimination. It promotes the establishment of a conducive environment where disabled people can coexist on equal terms with society in general.

In my working trips overseas, I have met people with severe physical impairments in that are living independently in their communities. They are able to achieve this through a social support system that provides personal assistants, peer counselling and independent living skills training, among others. The accessible built environment and public transport system also plays an important role in enabling disabled people to move around conveniently to participate in the activities of the community that they live in.

Disabled people in Malaysia have been screaming themselves hoarse to advocate for similar social support systems to enable us to live independently in the community too. If it can be done in other countries, it can be done here. For one reason or another, issues of disabled people have not been given the attention it deserves. Disabled people are still being marginalized in all areas in society.

Where disability rights advocates have failed, perhaps Datuk Seri Jeanne can whisper into the ear of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to seriously look into the issues affecting disabled people in a holistic manner? Surely a few words from lips of the wife is worth a thousand words of disability rights advocates who have been unsuccessful in impressing the government on the real and urgent needs of disabled people.

The Star
Monday September 8, 2008
Jeanne visits paralympic team
By CELESTE FONG

BEIJING: Developers have been urged to design more disabled-friendly housing projects.

Datin Seri Jeanne Abdullah, the wife of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who was touched by the disabled-friendly facilities she saw at the Paralympic Games Village here, said: “We should do more for the disabled.

“I hope schools will encourage and teach children to help (the disabled) if they see a disabled (person). We should change our mindset to be more caring,” she added.

Pointing at the disabled-friendly ATM machine booth, Jeanne said the facilities in the village showed the level of consideration for the disabled.

She was also awed by the spirit of the paralympians and the courage displayed by them, saying that Malaysians could emulate them.

“This is what we should be doing in our country,” she said, hoping that Malaysians could raise the level of consideration for the disabled.

Jeanne, the patron of the Malaysian Paralympic Council, was accompanied by Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Ismail Sabri Yaakob, Malaysian Ambassador to China Datuk Syed Norulzaman Kamarulzaman, Kuala Lumpur Mayor Datuk Ab Hakim Borhan and National Sports Council director-general Datuk Zolkples Embong to the games village here.

On the Malaysian paralympians, Jeanne, who met them in the village, said Abdullah had conveyed his best wishes to them.

The Malaysian paralympians will begin their respective events today.