The first afford I would like to see from UNICEF is to embrace the Internet. I want us to reflect on what UNICEF is doing in the physical world and do it in the Internet. The vulnerable are more at risk and we need UNICEF of the internet.
Persons with disabilities are one of the least represented groups of people in mainstream youth and citizen organizations. Engaging with young people with disabilities like experts in accessibility or resilience is an organic way of including us.
Quality education - Inclusive education needs boost. Internet, cloud based education looked like the future. But the simple truth is that some platforms have very low level of accessibility for persons with different disabilities. So, providers of educational and vocational content must provide content which is accessible and software companies need to be pushed to work on their accessibility issues and called out if they are actively not working on accessibility issues.
Independent living is something unthinkable for large groups of persons with disabilities. But the reasons for it span from parent overprotection to retro style legislation to banks which perceive persons and especially young persons with disabilities like clients with liabilities. So, we need to talk about independent living from broad and multifaceted perspectives.
Access to quality jobs is crucial and is hindered by luck of understanding of the abilities of persons with disabilities in job creators, investors, founders and the economic and financial research and practice. Accessibility to jobs, job promotion and job creation should be a core issue for organizational functioning.
High tech - Tech companies should implement accessibility as a core design pillar just like the product design, sales and Advertising.
Mental health - As a mental health specialist and researcher of mental health of adolescents with disabilities I can say that psychology needs to move faster in creating more knowledge and consultation tools for persons with disabilities.
The freedom of creating a family and having kids starts at the interception of parents and peers. Parents are often overprotective for different reasons. This is a form of abuse and often leads to self harm, acute feelings of purposelessness and helplessness, depression and abusive behavior.
Intimacy is a taboo topic for parents, caregivers and some peers. As a cancer survivor I was told by my doctors and parents that I should not even consider having kids. This is incredibly painful.
- Those questions should be approached from a SBC standpoint and C4D officers should campaign more openly how we can love and be with persons with disabilities, they should engage parents, religious leaders, policy makers and social workers.
- As a closing point I would like to call out populism and populist movements as an issue of perpetuating discrimination and ablism against persons with disabilities.
By,
Dido Manolov, 28, Visually impaired, Bulgaria, UNICEF Young Champion for Social and Behavior Change