Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9805040904.A20543-0100000@lan.vita.org> Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 09:57:24 -0400 From: Dania Granados <mailto:granados@LAN.VITA.ORG> Subject: May DevelopNet News To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
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May 1998 Volume 8, No. 5
IN THIS ISSUE
FOCUS ON DISABLED WOMEN
Double Discrimination?
LITERATURE REVIEWS
Tensions Between NGO Headquarters and Field Offices -- Healthy
or Unhealthy?
ORGANIZATIONS
Starting Small Businesses to Manufacture Wheelchairs
VITA PROJECTS
Update on Satellite/NGO Coalition
ANNOUNCEMENTS
African Communications
Global Education on the Net
* * *
DevelopNet News is published monthly by Volunteers in Technical Assis-
tance (VITA) in Arlington, Virginia, USA. For additional information,
please see the end of this newsletter.
* * *
F o c u s o n D i s a b l e d W o m e n
DOUBLE DISCRIMINATION?
At the Leadership Forum for Women with Disabilities held last June (1997)
in Washington, DC, U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright noted that
there are more than 300 million women with disabilities in the world.
Secretary Albright urged that "if we are to build the kind of future we
want, women with disabilities cannot be marginalized, women and girls
with disabilities must be empowered." In general, we know that the status
of disabled women varies according to individual circumstances and to the
country in which they live, but, in general, the poorer the country, the
greater the disadvantages of a disabled woman.
About 51 percent of disabled people are women, and about three fourths of
disabled women live in developing countries. While there are many kinds
of disabilities, at least 20 million of the disabled women in developing
countries are mobility impaired - they just can't get beyond their homes.
Whether their immobility is the result of birth defects, accidents,
disease, or war is irrelevant. These are the women I am writing about in
this article.
People with disabilities have the same need for food, health care,
shelter, education and training as others but are often denied access to
programs that meets those needs. In many societies disabled women are
consigned to the margins - not admitted to schools, rejected by employ-
ers, and denied access to health care. Consequently their strength and
skills are lost to society; it's not just a matter of an individual being
kept out of society.
As usual, children with disabilities are even more victimized, especially
girl children in developing countries. In most countries, girls have a
lower status and enjoy fewer of the rights, opportunities and benefits of
childhood than boys. Children with disabilities usually go to special,
segregated schools, if they go to school at all. For example, In Zimba-
bwe, 52 percent of disabled children get no education at all.
Secretary Albright continues, "there is no reason on earth why a child
with disabilities should not be able to sit in a classroom, learn the
same skills, and dream the same dreams as her or his fellow students; or
why an adult with disabilities should not receive the same help in
starting a small business or learning a trade."
Donna Shalala, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Service, at the same
conference observed that at the NGO Forum at the Beijing Conference the
Women with Disabilities meeting tent was originally located at the far
end of a big field. It was hidden. There were no wooden planks, no
curbcuts, and lots of mud. It was exactly where it shouldn't have been:
totally inaccessible. Does this describe how women with disabilities are
generally treated?
Rannveig Traustadottir of Syracuse University notes that those concerned
with issues of disability as well as the feminist movement have histori-
cally neglected women with disabilities. Rannveig refers to women with
disabilities as suffering from "double discrimination;" being women, and
being disabled. Not only doubly discriminated against, also doubly
ignored! Rannveig claims that disabled women are one of the most vulnera-
ble and marginalized groups in today's society.
In a March 1995 article in Dawn Magazine Fatima Mansuri writes that women
with disabilities are the worst victims of violation where their human
and legal rights are concerned. They are "outcasts" in their own families
and are often hidden and isolated. They are denied the right to marry,
have children, or inherit property. She writes, "For the disabled
children, especially for the girl-child, violation of these rights starts
from infancy. Malnutrition makes them easy victims of childhood maladies.
When educational facilities exist, preference is given to the normal
child, and if at all to a person with disability, to the disabled male
child."
Anyone who has even briefly visited a developing country gets the picture
quickly. I will never forget arriving at the airport in Dakar, Senegal
for the first time a couple of years ago and seeing an unexpected mass of
disabled and disfigured people reduced to begging to survive! While we
have a long way to go in the United States in dealing fairly with
disabled persons, we seemed so much further ahead! I am aware of the
still existing problems in the U.S. since I was involved with technology
transfer for people with disabilities long before the Disabled Americans
Act. The improvements in the United States have been phenomenal since the
passage of the legislation - and disabled people themselves have taken
the leadership role in its implementation. But what happens in countries
where the disabled people have "no voice," and where disabled women
especially are denied the same rights as other women - even though that
isn't saying a whole lot!
Who is doing anything about disabled persons in developing countries
other than convening meetings and calling attention to the lack of public
interest and policies? While there are a number of programs dealing with
women in developing countries, it seems that international development
programs don't address the needs of disabled women as a special group of
people. Here and there groups of disabled women might qualify for
microenterprise loans as in a VITA project in Chad, but, generally, There
is no special focus on disabled women.
After searching the World Wide Web for several hours to find organiza-
tions or activities that impact disabled women in developing countries, I
finally came across the Whirlwind Network (started in 1980) and a related
organization called Whirlwind Women (started in 1994 in anticipation of
the Beijing NGO Women's Conference). Whirlwind Women is a part of
Whirlwind Wheelchair International that has been focusing on mobility
impaired women in developing countries since 1980. All are related to San
Francisco State University in California - but all the focus is on
developing countries.
Whirlwind Women helps set up shops to manufacture the Whirlwind wheel-
chair. (This used to be called the Hotchkiss wheelchair.) The design of
the wheelchair evolved since 1980 with technical input from women
throughout the world. The wheelchair itself is rugged, durable, and
low-cost. They are able to maneuver on the uneven terrain and rough
conditions common to most developing countries with poor roads and
streets.
The organization helps local women to establish shops in developing
countries that hire disabled women to design, produce and repair the
wheelchairs. At least, that's the idea. The fact is that women in many
countries disabled women have been forced to abandon the shops they
helped establish because of cultural restrictions - women as mechanics?
women as business persons? women equal to men? disabled women with jobs?
The wheelchair is made primarily of low-tech, local parts, and is
marketed locally. It is a folding wheelchair, so it can be carried on a
bus. There are currently 35 shops in 25 countries. About 15,000 wheel-
chairs have been built, and more than 250 mechanics have been trained.
The most successful shop in Cambodia has made about 4,000 chairs. This
barely dents the need that twenty million people in developing countries
have for wheelchairs, but it is a good start.
For the thousands of people without wheelchairs, life is a constant
struggle for survival. Many of these people are essentially relegated to
bed, isolated from others with disabilities, dependent on caretakers and
in danger of deadly pressure sores. Often, begging becomes the primary
mode of subsistence for those able to leave a bed.
Currently, a Whirlwind Women's pilot project is underway in Uganda. The
Uganda women represent The Disabled Women's Network and Resource Organi-
zation of Uganda. There are currently no folding wheelchairs manufactured
in the country of approximately 20 million people with at least 100,000
of them needing a mobility device. The wheelchair that can be folded can
be carried on a bus - otherwise, with a non-folding wheelchair transpor-
tation is virtually impossible. Nevertheless, even with a folding
wheelchair, according to Ugandan women, bus drivers routinely refuse to
transport wheelchairs and charge extra fare for non-folding wheelchairs
when they do agree to stop.
There must be many other successful projects that are making a difference
to disabled women, but it is sure difficult to learn about them. Rannveig
Traustadottir of Syracuse University seems to be correct in observing
that women with disabilities aren't even getting much attention by
organizations active in battling for women's rights.
By: Joe Sedlak, mailto:jsedlak@vita.org. For more information about Whirlwind
Women contact Jenny Kern, mailto:Jkernesq@aol.com.
* * *
L i t e r a t u r e R e v i e w s
TENSIONS BETWEEN NGO HEADQUARTERS AND FIELD OFFICES - HEALTHY OR UN-
HEALTHY?
Naoki Suzuki, Inside NGOs, Intermediate Technology Publications Ltd.,
London, U.K., 1998.
This book is especially timely because of the shift of development
support by aid funding agencies to NGOs.
This is not a book written by an academic or "outsider;" it is an
insider's view of how an NGO really operates and the tensions between NGO
headquarters and field offices. Generally the headquarters focuses on
organization and the funders whose needs must be met. The field tends to
focus on programs and target people who are served by project activities.
The author describes the problems and how NGOs tend to deal with them
from the perspective of the people who work for and within an NGO.
"Everyone" working for an international NGO can relate to these problems
and solutions. In fact, the author made sure that representatives of
"everyone" were included in his research, NGO officers as well as staff
members.
Headquarters versus field can literally tear an organization apart, or at
least keep it constantly tense. Because the situation is so volatile,
many NGOs simply turn a blind eye to the problem and accept it as a part
of their "culture" or lifestyle. This impacts recruiting personnel,
hiring them, placing or misplacing them, and giving them responsibility
without authority. The author recommends some practical solutions to
these problems based on what he and other managers did to solve problems.
He admits to his own mistakes, so he is not passing himself off as the
best example.
Every senior NGO staffer in headquarters or field offices can read this
book with real profit. While it doesn't say much that is unknown, it
summarizes it well. At least it lets people working within an NGO know
that they are not alone in their concerns about NGO management.
* * *
O r g a n i z a t i o n s
WHIRLWIND WOMEN
Whirlwind Women is a project of Whirlwind Wheelchair International, a non
profit organization affiliated with the San Francisco State University
School of Engineering. Whirlwind wheelchairs are made only in developing
countries for their local markets.
Whirlwind Women started in 1994 in anticipation of the Beijing NGO
Women's Conference. Whirlwind Women was formed to maximize women's
involvement in wheelchair design, repair and production. Its goal is to
develop partnerships with disabled women's groups in developing countries
who want to take greater control of their own mobility by manufacturing
wheelchairs. Its first project is in Uganda to help the Disabled Women's
Network and Resource Organization establish a shop to make and market
wheelchairs starting in 1999.
For more information, contact Jenny Kerns, program director: mailto:jkernesq@ao-
l.com
* * *
V I T A P r o j e c t s
UPDATE ON SATELLITE/NGO NETWORK
Many people are inquiring about the status of VITA's effort to form a
coalition of satellite providers and NGO (and other) users consortium.
VITA has been primarily focusing on the satellite provider side of the
coalition.
To date, general agreements with two organizations have been reached.
They are SatelLife of Boston, MA, an organization specializing in
providing opportunities for exchange of health information, using their
Healthsat satellite in remote areas. The other company is Consorcio Sat,
a Portuguese organization that owns Posat-1 that is used now primarily in
Portuguese speaking countries. VITA has been using Posat-1 since its
satellite launched in 1990 stopped operating.
Both SatelLife and Consorcio Sat have agreed to allow their excess
capacity to be used in the consortium that also includes VITAsat, VITA's
satellite launched last year in Russia. Discussions are ongoing with
other companies and organizations and VITA is optimistic that the
provider side of the consortium will soon include other satellite
capacity. The idea is that the more satellites involved, combined with
special "gateways" to the Internet, the more frequently email messages
can be sent or received by participating organizations.
The technical key to using multiple satellites is a ground terminal that
can access different satellites operating on different protocols and
frequencies. VITA is currently reviewing proposals for the development of
such a ground station.
Inquiries should be sent to mailto:ngosat@vita.org
* * *
A n n o u n c e m e n t s
GLOBAL EDUCATION ON THE NET
International Conference on Computers in Education, October 14-17, 1998,
Beijing, China.
This is the 6th International Conference on Computers in Education. The
conference is organized by the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the Association
for the Advancement of Computers Education, Charlottesville, VA, USA. The
conference serves to foster the creation and dissemination of knowledge
about the use of information technology in education in Asia-Pacific
region, in particular the hosting countries.
Topics will include: architectures for educational technology systems,
computer-mediated communication, interactive learning environments,
multimedia and artificial intelligence, teleconferencing, and web-based
distance learning.
China is the most populated country in the world, and currently more that
100 of its universities are connected through Internet. A major goal of
this conference will be to set a milestone for China in employing
information technology in education in the next century.
For more information: www.njtu.edu.cn/icce98
AFRICAN COMMUNICATIONS
AFCOM '98 (Seventh All Africa Telecommunications, Informatics and
Broadcasting Conference) will be held September 9 through September 11,
1998 at the Doubletree Hotel in Arlington VA, USA. This year's theme is
"Partnering to Build the African Information Infrastructure."
AFCOM '98 is co-sponsored by the African Communications magazine, the
Regional African Satellite Communications Organization, the PanAfrican
Telecommunications Union, the Union of Radio and Television Organizations
of Africa, the Pan African News Agency, and others.
For information on the conference, please contact Emma Ancrum:
mailto:emma@us.net
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