Cuba hosts internat'l conference on disabled rights

A history-making international conference will be held in Cuba this December, from the 24th through the 31st. Initiated by the Cuban organization of people with physical-motor limitations, the Asociacion Cubana de Limitados Fisico o Motores (ACLIFIM), the first International Conference on Disabled People's Rights in the Process of Integration into Society is being organized and sponsored by a number of Cuban Agencies and institutions, including the Martin Luther King Ecumenical Center, the Ministries of Health and Education, the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICASP), and the Latin American Reference Center for Special Education.

Topics at the conference will include: the right to social integration; the legal rights of the people with multiple disabilities; the right to a job, workplace issues; human and civil rights; social security and social services; physical, professional, and social rehabilitation for social integration; the elimination of architectural, auditive and psychological barriers; education, culture and disabilities; the right to participate in sports and education; the right to sexuality, sex and sexual education; the right to maternity/paternity and to raise children; the image of disabled people in the mass media; the right to participate in leadership in society.

Some groups in the US have been sending ACLIFIM wheelchairs and related equipment on the Pastors for Peace Friendshipments to Cuba and it is hoped that a mini-friendshipment can be organized for December from Florida, by water. In the tradition of the five successful challenges to the embargo organized by Pastors for Peace, it is hoped that a group of disabled rights activists and a shipment of wheelchairs and equipment could sail to Cuba from Florida to coincide with the conference. (Whether or not a boat becomes available, any equipment donated will be sent to ACLIFIM.) For details about the conference, or if you have wheelchairs to contribute, or a boat that could be used to transport them (probably from Key West) to Cuba in December, please contact Michael Canney in St. Petersburg at 813-522-5594.

previous article
next article