It is a great privilege for me to be present here in such a dignified occasion and share our experiences on disability inclusion and making disability a concern for all.

I would like to express my deep respect to the late President of the Philippines Mr. Ramon Magasaysay for his extraordinary contribution to the field of development within and beyond Philippines.

I feel really honoured that the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation has elected me as an award winner for 2010. I firmly believe that the prestigious award has been awarded considering the issue of disability rather than considering my individual accreditation. This award will promote mainstreaming disability in Bangladesh and in Asia too.

I shall take the opportunity to introduce my country, the situation of persons with disabilities in the context of Bangladesh, the global trend and future directions towards creating a barrier free environment for all including persons with disability.

Introduction to Bangladesh and Disability scenario:

Bangladesh, a South Asian nation is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with a population of 15.8 million people in 144,000 sq kilometer territory. It emerged as an independent and sovereign country in 1971 following a nine month war of liberation.

Economically, Bangladesh has one of the low incomes in the world, GNI per capita of US $ 520, has a highest percentage of people living in poverty where 50% of population live below international poverty line of US$1.25 per day, 1992-2007 . The progress of Bangladesh is held back by the frequent stream of diverse natural disasters.

If we look back to the scenario in early 90s, the lives of most persons with disabilities were dominated by the ignorance, fear and superstition held by others. The direct result of these beliefs has been the "neglect" of persons with disabilities. This neglect manifests itself through the relative invisibility of persons with disability; exclusion from mainstream economic, social and political activities in their families and communities. Unfortunately this situation is still unchanged for the majority of more than 15 million persons with disabilities living in Bangladesh. This figure is still debated in the country as reliable statistical data is still absent since no dependable census or comprehensive survey has yet been made.

Persons with disability are usually left out of development due to a lack of awareness among the people who design and manage developmental programs. They are often not aware of the extreme difficulties faced by persons with disabilities and most do not have access to gain the skills and knowledge that would enable them to include persons with disability and their families in development programs. The neglect that results from this lack of knowledge reinforces and multiplies the effects of the negative attitudes that already exist within families and communities. And most of the times it is not the impairment rather the attitudinal and environmental factors that a person with disability encounters in everyday life that cause his or her exclusion from society.

Disability became a development agenda in the global context as a result of the declaration of United Nations Standard Rules in 1993, the Global Decade on Disability which was reinforced by declaration of the UN ESCAP Decade on Disability (1993-2002) and the Millennium Decade with Biwako framework for action.

All of these declarations, conventions, charters etc. call for an inclusive society, where the rights of all people, including persons with disabilities, will be upheld without discrimination. However, persons with disabilities have always been discriminated and kept isolated, invisible from the view of the society. No such notable initiative has been in place in the context of Bangladesh till mid of the UN ESCAP Decade other than some movement of Disabled Peoples Organization. To make them visible, and to ensure their full participation in the mainstream of the society, interventions based on the charity and welfare perspective will no longer be of any benefit at all.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) was signed in March 2007, became international law on 3 May 2008. Bangladesh signed and ratified the UN CRPD as the eighth country overall, hoping that the CRPD could enter into force at an earliest possible time.

Stakeholders addressing the issue of Disability in Bangladesh:

The Government of Bangladesh along with the development partners including NGOs, Disable People's Organization (DPOs) and civil societies had been taking a wide range of initiatives in implementing disability activities in the country.

Ministry of Social Welfare is the lead ministry to coordinate interventions towards addressing the disability issues in Bangladesh. The Social Service Department has taken-up schemes and program with specific agenda of intervention. The government has undertaken long term and short term schemes to support intervention addressing disability. A National Foundation for the Development of Disabled Person has been established to provide necessary guidance and support to the government and NGOs regarding disability issues. The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has included Inclusive Education in Primary Education Plans. Followed by an instruction from the office of the Prime Minister of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, all government ministries and departments have designated a Focal Point Person to address the issue of disability. Parliamentary Caucus has been formed to reinforce policy and legislative guidance to promote rights of persons with disability.

The National Forum of Organization Working with the Disabled (NFOWD) (the coordinating body at NGO level) is concerned with the rights and privileges of persons with disabilities as well as protects and safeguards against any infringements of the existing rights and privileges. The NFOWD is also concerned for coordination with NGOs and facilitate liaison with Government and NGO intervention at both central and local level. Disability Right Watch Group has been formed to facilitate better implementation of the national policies including UNCRPD.

There are significant roles played by the DPOs in the country to strengthen the voice of persons with disability for equal rights and participation. Self help groups are formed at different levels facilitated by the DPOs. National and local bodies of individual categories of disability exist in the country like Association of Visual Impaired Persons, Deaf Federation, Parents Society of Intellectually disabled etc. Besides, centres are operated by NGOs addressing needs of individual categories of disability like Autism, Mental health, Cerebral Palsy, etc.

CDD and Its Journey:

The Centre for Disability in Development (CDD), established in 1996 is working towards an inclusive society for persons with disabilities in Bangladesh. With its many partner organizations, CDD has been working nationally and internationally to promote participation of persons with disabilities and to create their access to equal opportunities and rights. It does this by building the capacity of its partner organizations to ensure that persons with disabilities are included in their development programs. CDD promotes networking and is creating linkages with development organizations, corporate sector and most importantly with the Government of Bangladesh. While CDD is primarily a training and information resource organization, it also provides therapy and assistive devices to persons with disabilities in remote regions through regional centres and mobile units.

CDD's work is designed using the principals of the social and rights-based model of disability. CDD believes that the rights and the service needs of persons with disabilities should be addressed. Its work is guided by national and international guidelines, including the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD).

CDD works with a vision of establishing equal opportunities and full participation for persons with disabilities in all spheres of life. The mission is to include disability issues in mainstream development. To realize its vision and mission CDD in 1996 initiated Community Approaches to Handicap in Development (CAHD) as a rights-based strategy for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in mainstream development. CAHD considers disability as a development issue that is crosscutting and is strongly linked to poverty. In CAHD meaningful participation of persons with disabilities in the process of their own development is strongly highlighted. It promotes social change and the ability of persons with disabilities. Under CAHD, the entire community is targeted in order to recognize the existence of persons with disabilities in their society, to change attitudes and to find ways of providing services to meet their needs. Positive attitudes remove barriers and create opportunities for persons with disabilities to participate equally in development processes.

CDD's programmes:

Starting in 1996, CDD had all-out effort to setup itself as knowledge based disability resource organization with technical capacity on human, information and material resources. The focus of CDD was capacity development of partner organizations to enable them to address the issue of disability in mainstream development. Starting with four organizations, CDD has trained and engaged around 350 development organizations in this process.

CDD has developed a series of training courses on different disability concerned issues and has trained over 10,000 development agents from non-government and government sectors.

After receiving capacity development support from CDD the development organizations implement activities to create positive changes in attitude of common masses towards persons with disabilities, provide basic rehabilitation services to the identified persons with disabilities and create inclusion opportunities in mainstream development programs.

Although the trained staff members of different partner organizations are reaching the homes of the persons with disabilities with basic rehabilitation services the specialized services that are sometimes required are beyond the level of competencies of the Community Rehabilitation Workers. CDD has established decentralized resource centres in the country that provide specialized services on physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, hearing and visual assessment, assistive device support, disability information and referrals. To ensure service delivery in distant areas, these centres operate mobile vans and a river vessel equipped with essential resources. CDD intends to promote such service set-ups through the Government of Bangladesh to ensure greater and sustained coverage.

Assistive devices for different types of disability are a pre-requisite for reducing vulnerability due to impairment of persons with disabilities and to enable them to be functionally more independent. Considering non-availability of appropriate assistive devices within the reach of persons with disabilities, CDD has established a National Resource Centre on Assistive Technology. The centre produces metal and wood devices along with artificial limbs and orthotics devices. The centre has established a nationwide network with its partner organizations to ensure supplies of appropriate assistive devices to the clients in contact with the partner organization's rehabilitation workers. The centre also supports capacity development of local workshops. .

CDD is promoting inclusion of students with disabilities in mainstream education system. It is advocating to the Government, sensitizing authorities, parents and students, providing training to teachers, education officers, developing teaching learning materials, and supporting in creating accessibility features at schools. CDD is providing such support to 500 schools where a notable number of children with disabilities are studying. To promote a disability friendly environment at education institutes CDD encourages and supports formation of Disability Friends Students Club.

Empowerment of persons with disabilities is a major focus of CDD. To enable persons with disabilities to take up leading roles in society and claiming their rights, CDD facilitates formation of their Self Help Groups and development of their capacity. As groups they carry out awareness and advocacy at local and national level.

To improve access to information and education of persons with disabilities CDD has contributed in developing computerized Braille to text and text to Braille software in Bangla. CDD has a large scale Braille printing set-up. It produces Braille materials for individuals and organizations in the country. CDD is also producing Braille slates and stylus and distributing at a subsidized cost. CDD has developed Bangla sign language and is working to promote Sign Language, as an optional language for all and not limiting it to only people with hearing and speech impairments and their families.

Among the different disability groups, Deaf-blindness is one of the most challenging groups to address. When Deaf-blindness was still relatively an untouched area in Bangladesh CDD developed in country capacity, and is implementing a pilot project with partner organizations. It has developed a National Resource Centre on Deafblindness and operates a day care centre in the city.

One of the major focuses of Bangladesh is to ensure Food Security for the poor. CDD in association with a consortium of development organizations is mainstreaming families with disability members into food security programs. The technical support include identification of families with disabilities, assessment of impairment, need based therapeutic intervention, assessment of possible areas of livelihood, capacity development and providing assets for livelihood activities.

Around 4,000 children in Bangladesh are born with cleft lip and palate every year. If unattended, these children experience social exclusion. CDD provides surgical support to 1,000 children with cleft lip and palate per year.

Bangladesh is worldwide known as a country of natural disasters. The situation of persons with disabilities in disaster is more vulnerable than others. Bangladesh is recognized as a country with strong disaster preparedness programs which can significantly reduce the risk of vulnerability in most cases of natural disasters. CDD is actively advocating and building capacity in Bangladesh to promote Disability inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DiDRR). To increase existing knowledge base CDD is implementing pilot projects on DiDRR, learning of which will be widely disseminated. CDD also responds in post disaster relief and rehabilitation particularly for the families with person with disability.

In addition to extending technical support CDD also channels small project funds to many partner NGOs to implement issue based projects. Learning from these projects provides useful input for improvement of CDD's programme concepts, training courses, and IEC materials.

Changes and future directions:

Currently hundreds of development organizations are mainstreaming disability issues as partners of CDD. In addition, there are many other NGOs, DPOs, Forums and associations that address the issue. The Government of Bangladesh is also very supportive to the cause of disability. However, we still can't claim the results attained thus far as satisfactory. In Bangladesh we have 15 million persons with disabilities, among them around 75% live in rural areas and in difficult conditions. Unfortunately, most of them are still out of required disability and development services.

The major focus of our work should be to reduce the barriers that obstruct the inclusion of persons with disabilities. We need to create better environments that will be disability friendly. We need to change our attitudes towards persons with disabilities; we need to believe in their potentials and abilities; and we need to work in partnership in an atmosphere that honors equal rights and dignity for all. The drive of our work should be 'empowerment' of persons with disabilities. It is them who need to be in the forefront as leaders and change agents.

The world is faced with many challenges; conflicts, food scarcity, fresh water shortage, disasters, deadly diseases, and climate change. But we need to remember that all of these affect persons with disabilities, perhaps more than other groups of people. The world has experienced economic crisis and has resource limitations. Access to funding by development actors has become more competitive and difficult. However we are hopeful that the issue of disability will not lose its priority, and that all initiatives starting from planning, resource allocation and implementation will consider disability issues. Besides any initiatives taken considering needs of persons with disabilities do and will benefit all people of our society.

Conclusion:

The year 2010 carries special value and meaning to CDD. We have successfully passed 15 years in developing capacities on mainstreaming disability issues. During this time, we partnered with many and had contributed to improve the quality of life of thousands of persons with disabilities. I acknowledge the support of the Government of Bangladesh, NGOs, forums, civil societies, corporate agencies, donor communities and individuals who believed in CDD and supported our work. Most significantly I thank the committed staff members of the organization, without whom CDD would not be where it is today. I thank the international volunteers who supported CDD and accepted it as their second home. At the same time I salute and honor the persons with disabilities who associated with us and gave us valuable guidance.

I take this opportunity to especially thank our funding partners whose support has contributed in enabling us to progress in our pursuit of an inclusive society where persons with disabilities enjoy equal opportunities and rights. I would like to mention the supports of European Union (EU), UK Department for International Development (DFID), Australian Government Overseas Aid Program (AusAid), New Zealand's International Aid & Development Agency (NZAID), Japan Embassy, Handicap International (HI), CBM, Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), Dark and Light Blind Care, Sight Savers International (SSI), Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD), Sense International, Operation Cleft - Australia, International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI), Action Aid, PLAN International, Save the Children Sweden-Denmark, Dristipat, International Deaf Children's Society (IDCS), and Foundation for Children's Welfare Stamps (SKN), CBR DTC - Solo, Indonesia and Nippon Foundation.

Since the past 20 years we have experienced many positive changes in the world on disability issues. In recent times disability movement has been further boosted up by world wide actions. Today, we have the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (UNCRPD) as policy and legislative guidelines, we have Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and we have Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) as a strategy to ensure implementation of UNCRPD and attainment of MDGs. We at CDD firmly believe that with participation, contribution and support of all we can collectively bring positive changes in the quality of life of the persons with disabilities in Bangladesh, in Asia and beyond.

This prestigious award will strengthen our commitment and strengthen the disability movement in Bangladesh and in Asia for empowerment of persons with disabilities. CDD, my colleagues and I are extremely proud to work with persons with disabilities towards creating an inclusive society for all.