This brings me on to the following article -
The forgotten 15 per cent – why has disability droppedoff the world’s agenda?

“At an international summit in Bangkok this month, senior development advisors said the MDGs have ignored the issue of disability and, in doing so, have neglected the needs of 15 per cent of the world’s population.”

There are 1 billion people in the world with a disability – 50 percent of us live in poverty and the reality is that we are quite simply being forgotten about when it comes to global societal goals–

The EU has estimated that 20 percent of the European population will have a disability by 2020, right now the spending power of people with disabilities is a trillion dollar market in the US – billions in Europe and an estimated 4 billion in Ireland – and this spending power is on the rise
But I’m not going to rattle off lists of statistics and facts to prove my point here – because as shocking as these stats are the ultimate goal should be enough of a driving force to ensure that disabled people aren’t forgotten about – ignored and not included in the future –

‘This is not just an agenda for people with disabilities,’ says Akiko Ito of the UN’s Department of Economic & Social Affairs. ‘We are promoting human rights for all and therefore advancing the goal of the international community as a whole. Lasting peace and security is only possible if economic and social wellbeing of people everywhere is assured.’

Disability activists around the world are calling on the UN to include disability as part of the next round of Millennium Goals – because disability is not something you can eradicate – you can’t wipe out 15percent of the worlds population and you certainly can’t ignore the business case that underpins the societal and economic gains of including people with disabilities.
But what you can do is you can include us – you can ensure that we have the same access to education, employment, goods and services as everyone else. You can ask the disability question and you can remind people that 15 percent of the worlds population shouldn’t just slip your mind -

Because right now the reality is we are simply forgotten about even when it comes to the Millennium Goals.

Caroline Casey and George Hook

At the last Kanchi Network event with Newstalk Caroline Casey spoke about the lack of critical leaders for disabled people – saying “We don’t have a Bono to speak up and represent us”–

Kanchi has looked to business to pioneer, lead and act as a vehicle for this system change – to put disability on its leadership agenda – to achieve inclusion – to make everyone really mean everyone – because it doesn’t matter if you’re disabled, black, white, rich, poor –
We’re all people and we all count.

We can tick off another 78km from our 400km Challenge after this weekend with the team running, walking and cycling in Dublin, Wicklow and Denmark over the weekend!

339.1km done so far!

Check out our video here
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11th of May – only 17 days left in our challenge

Check out the full break down of the 261.1 Km’s that our team have done so far!

1m for every person with a disability in Ireland.

Date Total
1st May 17.7
2nd May 36.3
3rd May 17.8
4/5th May 24
6thMay 74
7th May 36
8th May 6
9h 10.55
10th May 39.15

Total 261.1

Only 138.9 to go and we will have run/walked/cycled 1m for every person with a disability in

Check out the pictures our team have taken during the Challenge

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8th of May

8 short days into our sports challenge and I’m delighted to report that we are bang on track for our Challenge of the Kanchi team running, walking and cycling 1m for every person with a disability in Ireland.

Our team were running, walking and cycling in Wicklow, Cork, Dublin and Spain over the weekend and we’ve now completed 162.8km out of our 400km!

Check out the pictures from Week One!
Kanchi Sports Challenge

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3rd of May

Two days into our Challenge “Running, Walking & Cycling 1m for Every Person with a Disability in Ireland” approximately 400km in total –
and we’re bang on track – with our team running, walking and cycling in Dublin, Wicklow, Mayo and Spain!

1st May 17.7km
2nd May 33.3km
To date 51.0,km

Nicola 18k 2nd May

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1st of May
The Irish Sports Council has set businesses the goal of getting active over the month of May and we were only too delighted to get our thinking caps on to come up with something creative and fun for all of us here in Kanchi to do as a team during May- so here it is

The Kanchi team all 12 of us are setting ourselves the goal of running/walking and cycling (if we can get a bike) 1m for every person with a disability in Ireland..
So Kanchi is hoping to run/walk/cycle 400,000m for the 400,000 people with disabilities in Ireland – which roughly translates to 400km over the next 18 days.

So this is our blog that you can follow to keep up to date with our progress- we’ll be posting pictures of the team and tweeting throughout the challenge.

So here it goes guys –

MARGARET Mullarney knew something was seriously wrong when her right leg starting dragging and her handwriting became inexplicably small and cramped.
Then one day, the former solicitor and life coach from Ballinteer, Dublin, found herself on a golf course and couldn’t remember how to play the game.
She went to see her GP, who referred her to a neurologist, who diagnosed her with Parkinson’s.
“It was absolutely a huge shock. I was devastated,” she told the Irish Independent.
“For the first three months I wallowed in self pity but then I decided I would take ownership of it and get on with it,” she said.

Now eight years later, she is the founder of a charity to provide support and self-help for the 10,000 people in Irelandsuffering from the progressive neurological disorder.

Move4Parkinson's Launch

The 56-year-old mother of two launched Move4Parkinson’s at Dublin’s Mansion House yesterday to coincide with Parkinson’s Awareness Month this April.
While the cause of the debilitating disease remains unknown and the symptoms vary from patient to patient, common traits include tremors, rigidity, and slowness of movement.
Ms Mullarney is encouraging other sufferers to get active and follow five simple steps to improve their quality of life.

They include educating themselves about nutrition, exercise, medication, the importance of emotional wellbeing and alternative treatments.
The charity will host a Patient Empowerment Day on June 20 to coincide with an international conference on Parkinson’s Disease and other movement disorders at the Dublin Convention Centre, June 17-21.
In the meantime, Ms Mullarney is seeking volunteers and sponsors and can be contacted at move4parkinsons.com.

Leadership and Disability the latest event brought to you by the Kanchi Network and hosted by Newstalk will take the form of a panel discussion facilitated by George Hook featuring Minister Kathleen Lynch, Colm O Gorman, CEO Amnesty International, Siobhan Barron, CEO, National Disability Council BID , Danuta Gray, Telefonica 02 Ireland Board Member and Mark Rohan Paralympian

Leadership and Disability

This event examines Disability as a Leadership issue in Ireland, use the comment box below and have your say – should disability be a leadership issue and why?

The date is symbolic: March 21st – 3-21 – 3 of Chromosome 21

Down Syndrome is:
The presence in every cell in the body of an extra chromosome: the smallest pair (=2), number 21, is in fact a trisomy (=3). This happens at the very moment of conception, when the extra chromosome is brought in either by the sperm or the egg. It is currently unknown why this happens.

NB: this is the most common form of Down Syndrome, found in 95% of cases. 2 other types can also be found, Mosaic Down Syndrome and Translocation Down Syndrome, and these also relate to chromosomes 21.

Down Syndrome is not:
A disease, an illness. It cannot be “cured”. Once the first cell has 3 of chromosome 21, every cell in the body will have the same trisomy. The extra chromosome cannot be taken away.

Since Down Syndrome is not a disease, it is not contagious, it cannot be “caught” from someone.

Some Myths about Down Syndrome:

Only older women have children with Down Syndrome: FALSE!
Women of all ages give birth to children with Down Syndrome, though the chances of having a child with Down Syndrome does increase as the mother gets older. Just like all other children, the majority of children with Down Syndrome are born to mothers aged between 25 and 35, but some mothers can be as young as 16. In Ireland, 1 in 750 children born every year is diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

People with Down Syndrome die young: FALSE!
It is true that 50 years ago or so, a lot of children with DS died before the age of 5. This is because half of these babies are also born with Congenital Heart Defects. But advances in Cardiology and Cardio-Thoracic surgery means that most of them can go on to live full long lives. The oldest person with DS is a lady living in the UK. She is 87. The oldest man with DS died last weekend in the States, at the grand age of 83.

People with Down Syndrome cannot learn to read or write: FALSE!
I had the honour of being in the middle of a 1000 people strong audience three years ago and listening to Olympic Medallist Karen Gaffney tell us about her love of reading, and of her favourite books: the Harry Potter series and…. Macbeth! How many of us have actually taken the time to read Macbeth just for pleasure?
Most people with DS are now educated not only to secondary schooling but beyond. An increasing number of universities have degree courses adapted for student with DS.

People with Down Syndrome live in institutions, or spend their lives at home with their parents, and then with their siblings: FALSE!
While most people with DS may need some assistance for day-to-day living, an increasing number achieve full independent living. They drive, they work, they get married, they have children.

The only work people with Down Syndrome can do is stack shelves or pack bags in a supermarket: FALSE!
People with DS have a wide range of talents and abilities. Most of them are now employed in a wide range of jobs, companies and industries. They work in factories, in offices. Just two examples:
- If you watch RTE1 in the afternoon you will have seen reporter Michael Gannon presenting various documentaries and conducting interviews on a regular basis. He happens to have DS.
- In her spare time Aimee Richardson plays the fiddle and the tin whistle. She lobbies for inclusion of people with Intellectual Disabilities and is a member of the European Youth Council. But her main passion and her professional career is acting, and she has recently become the voice of Punky, the principal character of the RTE cartoon series designed for pre-schoolers. Like Punky, Aimee has DS.

People with Down Syndrome are always happy : FALSE!
People with DS are like anyone else, happy and sad, calm and angry. They experience exactly the same emotions as any other human being. However the reality is that they are often teased, called names that hurt them, and they may not always have the adequate words to respond.

Please remember: a person IS NOT Down Syndrome, a person HAS Down Syndrome. No one is defined by the extra chromosome he or she happens to have. But every one of us is defined by our personality, our abilities and what we do to achieve our potential.

On this day, World Down Syndrome Day, please stop, think, and open your mind to the difference this little extra chromosome makes. It will enrich your life.

The parents, now with their four year old daughter, are suing the hospital for $7million saying that this is the amount they will need in order to support their little girl through her life.

We all know that pre-natal testing is not always accurate and that we cant be 100% sure that everything will always work out the way we want it to when bringing a baby into the world is concerned. Do you think the blame the parents are putting on the doctors is deserved? There are risks attached when carrying a child and sometimes no amount of technology will find out complications during a pregnancy. It can be argued that we should accept our children, regardless of whether they have disabilities or not and that this little girl shouldn’t grow up seeing her parents fighting for money to compensate them for her disability.

On the other hand, the hospital apparently said they were definite in confirming that the baby was not going to be born with Down syndrome. If we are unable to tell people for sure that everything is going to be fine is it not wrong to make empty promises?

Check out the full article here: http://www.katu.com/news/local/Parents-sue-hospital-over-wrong-diagnosis-of-Down-syndrome-141129683.html?tab=video&c=y and let us know what you think.

Nikki Hegarty Kanchi Network Manager

I joined Kanchi in January of this year, my background is in business consulting and so although it has been a big change, I am well used to joining new teams and getting stuck in to new challenges. My first two months has been a whirlwind of meeting members (existing and new), getting up to speed on Network activity and working with the team on creating interesting and engaging events.

The variety and scale of work that this small team do astounded me when I first joined. Network events, founder member meetings, creation of toolkit content, growing the network membership, newsletters and social media, training, consultancy on disability in business and carrying out disability audits, to name just a few. We have an amazing team here, Nicola, Terry and Amie in particular focus on the Network activity and between them have an encyclopaedic knowledge of disability and such a great passion and commitment for creating inclusive business that I would challenge anyone not to feel the same after working with them.

2012 will be a big year for the Kanchi Network. We are growing our membership base and creating new offerings for our members. In just a couple of weeks we will be moving into new offices, which will include training rooms so that we can deliver our courses on-site. We are expanding our training to include not just general disability awareness training but also targeted courses for HR managers, customer facing staff and leadership teams. We will be offering more consultancy services and expanding our provision of disability audits. In May we will be launching The Ability Café (an exciting new initiative which you will hear more of later).

I am hugely excited about the journey that the Kanchi network will be taking this year. All of this is possible only because of our network membership and because of the increasing demand for membership and services. Businesses are realising the real bottom line benefits which embracing inclusive business delivers.

So in closing, I want to say thanks to all of our members for your support in our first year of the Network. I am looking forward to meeting those of you who I have not yet had the opportunity to and my email address is nikki@kanchi.org if you want to get in touch.
If you have any feedback for us on the work we are doing or what you would like to see more of, please do let us know, we hugely value your input. We’re totally committed to continuing to offer you real support in becoming Ability companies and we look forward to continuing to see you at our Network events.

Headway

For anyone who isn’t familiar with Headway, they are a charity that provides support and services to people affected by brain injury
What is even more exciting about this fantastic initiative is that Clodagh McKenna chef, food writer and TV presenter will be a special guest at the launch of Brain Awareness Week 2012.

For more information about Headway and Brain Awareness Week check out www.headway.ie

Luckily I’m not the only one. In the past decade casual games that everyone can dip into emerged in force on platforms such as the Internet and the Nintendo Wii bringing gaming out of the basements of unpopular teenagers and into the mainstream. The average age of a gamer, is now 37. The video games industry now takes in more in sales yearly than each of the box office, dvds, and the music industries coming in at somewhere between $30 and $40 billion in 2008.

Gaming

A thoroughly worthwhile and fascinating array of solutions towards the inclusion of gamers with disabilities have been created. People with visual impairment can play audio games – games that have no visuals where the player reacts to sound to play the game. For example classic text adventure games like Zork and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy can be transcribed and played by visually impaired gamers. Special adaptions within game code can made to enable more people to play such as automatically controlling some aspects of your character for people with reduced motor control. Special controls for people with physical impairments have been made that use motion control (the Wii), motion detection (the Kinect) or special designs such as a one handed controllers and mouth controllers to get people with disabilities in on the fun.

It doesn’t even stop there. Games have even gone so far as to help teach and enable people with disabilities. For example the BrainTalk Communities have been experimenting with the virtual world Second Life. Second Life is a 3d environment where residents can explore the world meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another. Brigadoon is an experiment to stimulate people with high-functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome to learn how to socialize and interact better with other people. University of Kansas professor and Special Education authority Eva Horn used video games to train children with multiple handicaps (e.g., severely limited vocal speech acquisition) to make scan and selection responses. Skills learned in the video game were later transferred to a communication device. Other researchers have used video games to help
learning disabled children in their development of spatial abilities, problem-solving exercises and mathematical ability.

The ongoing sophistication of hardware and software we’re guaranteed to see in the coming decade promises more and more both in terms of gamer inclusion and innovative learning opportunities for everyone, and fun is at the top of the agenda!

To learn more about disability and games visit:
http://www.game-accessibility.com/

For a list of games appropriate for people with disabiltiies and a shop for increased accessibility controls visit:
http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/

What I found about this video is that it demonstrates the perception that a person with a disability is either a hero because they move outside the door or they are an object of pity. The other major dynamic is whether a person with a disability should sit tight till a cure is found or whether society should learn to develop environments that accomodate those who live in it.

At the last Kanchi Sounding Board meeting I gave a very quick overview of the development of UN policy from 1948 to date. This showed that the perception of disability has changed and continues to change in the intervening decades. We need to demonstrate the fact that including our needs in all aspects of society is good for all of society. Universal Design transforms our aspirations to a value proposition that can be measured, and thus managed, by the key stakeholders with whom we must liaise.

United Nations

A blind man stands at a set of pedestrian lights. An elederly lady stands on the other side of his guide dog. The lights change for him to go. The lady leans down, lifts the guide dog’s ear and says “It’s OK now, dear, it’s safe to cross”.

A woman with her 10-year-old son, who is a wheelchair user, needs to go into a small shop for a moment to purchase something. She leaves the boy outside with a can of coke while she goes inside. She hears her son crying and rushes outside. He is crying because someone has put a Euro coin into his can assuming he is begging.

Research undertaken by Forrester on behalf of Microsoft showed that up to 60% of computer users could benefit from facilities that would normally be considered as accessibility features.

In short, it is as normal for society to include people with disabilities as those without disabilities. Environments disable almost as much as personal impairments. Include our needs and all of society gains.