www.skillsportal.co.za | employment_equity Manyi believes that racism still prevalent in the workplace

This bit of news is really frightening. I am not sure which is worse; the fact that People with Disabilities only comprise 0.7% of the workforce...or that the figure has dropped by 30% in 4 years!? I am furious that this is being under-reported. Why was Jimmy Manyi allowed to concentrate on just one aspect of employment equity, which by comparison is streets ahead of Disability. We, as a country, are failing People with Disabilities... There needs to be a mind shift in corporate SA, and the wider society. One thing that I believe would help is an active African Employers Forum on Disability. I can only say "watch this space"! More news as soon as I can...

www.skillsportal.co.za | employment_equity Manyi believes that racism still prevalent in the workplace: "The representation of people with disabilities in the workplace had also gone down since 2000. After starting at .9% in 2000, the representation of people with disabilities had risen to 1% in 2002 but was back down at .7% in 2006. "

BBC NEWS | Technology | Smart hat brings play to disabled

Another interesting use of modern technology... I don't think of myself as a geek...but I do get a kick out of how different new technologies can be used to remove barriers that have in some cases been put there by other (older) technologies.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Smart hat brings play to disabled: "A 'smart' cap that allows disabled children to 'drive' radio-controlled cars and boats, has been launched.

The Dream-Racer device has four motion sensors that detect small movements of the head, which are then fed wirelessly to control the toy's direction.

The UK invention has also been adapted to allow disabled people to play games on Sony's PlayStation consoles."

Noesis: VeeSee

Hmm; a counter point to the previous post, Alison was able to point out some issues with VeeSee. I decided to do some more research (I apologise for posting before doing co earlier!). I think her comment to my previous post is well founded. Perhaps, as I come form a country ahead there is precious little sign language available, that I tend to get excited whenever I see that more may be more accessible to a wider audience...

Noesis: VeeSee: "VeeSee is a website that has been launched in the UK by an interpreter, Susie Grant. The site is operating under the Deafeatures Ltd.

Before I go any further, I really want to be positive about online development, but I'm really struggling here. More about that later. The site has a very strange mix of web 1.0 content and design, mixed with a web 2.0 approach through a social network. On the face of it, the site offers:"

BBC NEWS | Technology | IPTV for deaf people takes off

Another interesting development

BBC NEWS | Technology | IPTV for deaf people takes off: "A new web-based television service, or IPTV, for British Sign Language (BSL) users has recently launched in the UK.

VeeSee TV airs news and other programmes in BSL and is available 24 hours a day.

The channel can be viewed on a computer or via a set-top box and is the brainchild of BSL interpreter Susie Grant."

BBC NEWS | Technology | Motion-sensitive laptop developed

An interesting development of Tablet PC technology (which I am already sold on!)

BBC NEWS | Technology | Motion-sensitive laptop developed: "Motion-sensitive laptop developed

Tilting the laptop moves a cursor

A motion-sensitive laptop which can be controlled much like a Nintendo Wii remote is under development.

The tablet PC laptop has been adapted to respond to a user when moving the machine up or down, side to side, or forwards and backwards.

It is hoped the BT Balance system can help people with disabilities or the elderly, for whom using a keyboard or mouse can be difficult."

I really want a pair of these!!

I would love a pair of these wheels on my wheelchair... They even glow differently at night! Hmmm...
The website is:
http://www.sweetskinz.com

BBC NEWS | Europe | Unholy row at clergy soccer game

This is just madness! In a World where the conflict of different religions are causing such issues for us all, we should be looking to the different religious leaders to be trying to build bridges. Still, given my own experiences of religious leaders, I am not at all surprised, but still rather saddened, that they can be so thoughtless... Religions (of all denominations) have much to be ashamed of in this world. This just adds to their list...maybe their God will forgive them... but I don't believe we should.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Unholy row at clergy soccer game: "A friendship-building football match between Muslim and Christian clergy in Norway was called off after a row over the participation of women players.

Muslim Imams had refused to play against women because it went against their beliefs about close physical contact with the opposite sex.

But when the church decided to drop its women players, the priests' team captain walked out in protest."

IOL: Blind pilot flies halfway round the world

this is an impressive achievement!

IOL: Blind pilot flies halfway round the world: "Sydney - A blind British pilot landed his microlight aircraft in Sydney on Monday to complete a record-breaking flight halfway around the world.

Miles Hilton-Barber left London on March 7 and flew more than 21 000km to raise funds to fight blindness in developing countries.

'It's the fulfilment of an amazing dream,' the 58-year-old adventurer said after touching down at Sydney's Bankstown airport. 'I've been wanting to do this flight for about four years.'

Hilton-Barber flies with a sighted co-pilot but relies on speech output from his navigation instruments to steer his course, directing the plane from a wireless keyboard."

South Africa and Iraq: the missing example David Mikhail - openDemocracy

Hmm; an interesting, thought provoking article. But I do feel that the author slightly underplays the significance that the world's only living statesman played in all this: Mandela (or Madiba, as he is affectionately known by all here).

South Africa and Iraq: the missing example David Mikhail - openDemocracy: "The successful transition to democracy in South Africa could be an inspiration to Iraqis struggling with their own legacy of violence and dictatorship, says David Mikhail."

Kwikspar Abuses Parking Reserved for Disabled Motorist

This was kindly sent to me by Willie Bosch. I have left his words untouched.

Apart from the fact that parking for disabled is allocated close to the entrance of shops, they are designed to be a minimum of 3.5 meters wide.

The space is needed for the disabled persons car door to be fully open so that a wheelchair may be moved close to the seat for the person to climb or slide over to the wheelchair or the door must be fully opened for a person on crutches to be able to get out

In most cases the parking are designed with two bays next to each other, (as per above drawing) the one with the wheelchair sign on it where the vehicle should park and the adjacent bay, clearly marked in yellow with a cross through in the middle, where the wheelchair can be wheeled in for the driver or passenger to transfer to.

Should any other vehicle be parked inside the area allocated for parking for disabled motorists, there will be not enough space for the disabled motorist to get out of their car.

At the shopping centre in Seaview, there is a parking reserved for disabled motorists allocated in front of Seaview Kwikspar, but unfortunately a disabled motorist will never be able to use such facility because a silver Mercedes is parked there every day all day long.

After receiving complaints from disabled motorists that there is always a metallic silver Mercedes benze parked in that parking daily and they note that the car does not display a parking sticker for disabled motorists on it, I decided to find the owner of the Mercedes and politely discuss the problem he or she is creating for disabled motorists by parking his/her car there every day.

On Thursday (5/04/07) at Seaview Kwikspar, I was referred to a Mr John vd Berg and when I introduced myself and said that I wish to talk to him about his car parked on the parking reserved for disabled motorists, he immediately went into defence, saying that he can park where he wants and by parking there, he leaves the other parking open for his customers.

I explained that I am also a customer in his shop but I cannot use the parking allocated for disabled motorists, he replied that it must be four months since he had last seen me in his spar, but he knows who I am (he reads the w/post) and that I should leave him alone as he has work to do.

I informed him that I have parked my car in the parking for disabled and requested if he would accompany me to my car so that I could demonstrate to him that I cannot open my door fully and show him what problems he is causing by parking his car there and that a disabled motorist could bump his car with their door should they open it fully.

Mr John vd Berg replied that if that happened, he will respray his whole car and sue for expenses and that I must please go he is busy.

I explained to Mr John vd Berg that if he does not want to listed to reason (and I had even brought the attached drawing for him to see) then I will have no alternative other that to ticket his car with a R200:00 fine and let a judge decide who is right and wrong.

Many persons are under the impression that one may not enforce the law on private property. All traffic laws may be enforced at any property that has free access to the general public except where there are controlled access such as entrance booms etc, but then again if the landlord requests the traffic department to enforce the law on their property, it will happen.

The landlord of the Seaview Shopping Centre, Mr Leonard told me he has had numerous complaints about Mr John vd Berg parking his car on the parking reserved for disabled motorists but has had no joy when asked not to park there.

The above photo`s will show you my LDV parked next to the Mercedes and as you can see there is no space left for a disabled driver to get into a wheelchair

It is a shame that the management has no compassion for his clients that are disabled and would rather use our parking to give more space to his other clients that are not so disabled

BBC NEWS | Business | Africa aid target 'may be missed'

Credit where it is due (pun intended!); we may argue that 0.51% is too small... but at least one country made it; pity a few more could not achieve the same...

BBC NEWS | Business | Africa aid target 'may be missed': "The European Union (EU) set a target for its 15 established members to give 0.51% of Gross National Income (GNI) in aid by 2010 and 0.7% by 2013.

In 2006 the UK provided �6.85bn in aid which amounts to 0.52% of Gross National Income."

Labour on defective lifts and buildings in Durban

When one realizes that a defective lift can be a complete barrier to access for many people with disabilities, or worse, if they are defective then potentially they could strand people on upper floors, with no means of escape; then we should be absolutely horrified at this finding. It is essential that action is taken by the authorities to address this serious, dangerous problem. this work was done in Durban, but I am sure other cities in South Africa would be no better. I will follow this with great interest.

Labour on defective lifts and buildings in Durban: "24 April 2007

A random survey of buildings in parts of Durban's inner city and surrounding suburbs shows that 67% have lifts that are defective or not functioning.

The findings of the study also show that a total of 33 buildings out of 49 have lifts that are not functioning or defective. Sixty seven percent of the buildings' lifts have broken down completely, stalled frequently or are defective.

Fifty three percent of the lifts were not functioning at all from less than a year to 20 years. Approximately 20% have not worked for a period of between four to five years, and 8% between 10 to 11 years with complaints by residents disregarded by the owners or bodies corporate."

BBC NEWS | Health | Research opens way for bionic eye

A long way off yet, but fascinating nontheless:

BBC NEWS | Health | Research opens way for bionic eye: "Research opens way for bionic eye
Eye
A bionic eye could potentially restore sight
US scientists have opened the way for the development of a 'bionic eye'.

They used electrodes to stimulate an area of the brain that processes visual information, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported."

SA RUGBY A 'PARAPLEGIC FACTORY

this is really worrying; I love rugby, even though it was the root cause of me becoming a wheelchair user. But this tells me that there is something really wrong with Rugby in South Africa. Some of the stories that are coming out are really frightening & I do feel that something needs to be done. I have heard of horror stories from my sons' schools of coaches playing injured players, suggesting that children take substances to 'improve their body mass' & even paying students to injure opponents on the field. I don't think that it is so much a problem with the laws (Rugby has laws, not rules) of the game; but more an attitude problem which starts at school level, and permeates through the whole Rugby culture here.

By Kashiefa Ajam, Melanie Peters and Tash Reddy, Pretoria News online

Rugby in South Africa is in danger of becoming a "paraplegic factory". The rugby season has only just begun, but already serious on-field injuries have cost one player his life.

allAfrica.com: South Africa: 2010 Or Bust (Page 1 of 1)

My point exactly; let us host the 2010 at Newlands and spend the necessary on our transport infrastructure.

allAfrica.com: South Africa: 2010 Or Bust (Page 1 of 1): "Fifa was quite happy with Newlands, and that way Cape Town would save hundreds of millions of rands to spend on worthy causes -- and still get the tourists even if it failed in its bid to host a semifinal."

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

I had posted previously that South Africa were one of the movers, and first signatories to this convention. I feel that this convention should have far reaching effects, but I also feel that the actual implementation will prove to be difficult for many countries to acheive. I know DPI have put together a toolkit, and I will unpack that in a later post. But I want to include an email that I sent which was part of a discussion with other interested parties here in South Africa. I think it is important that we do discuss this, and ensure that our countries' obligations are not swept aside. I feel that an African Employers Forum on Disability would be a vital input source to this process. This is my proposal, in answer to an email calling for a Disability Indaba or Conference:

I feel that the DPI toolkit is a useful addition to the process. While I agree that there is a need for dialogue on these issues, I fear that we presently have more of a monologue in South Africa at present. If there is any Disability workshop or indaba, then who generally comes? People with disabilities mainly along with junior representation from a variety of HR departments, and we end up “preaching to the converted”, but not actually putting anything into action. There is a (quite natural) level of ignorance in the general public (and by extension, politicians too), on the sort of issues that people with disabilities face.
Any indaba, or conference, has to have clear, stated goals and targets of implementation that are published well before the event, and then the whole conference has to be geared towards producing these outcomes. There is nothing more frustrating (for everyone concerned) to have the expense of attending or speaking at a conference where the vast majority of delegates are people with disabilities attending in a personal capacity, and very few decision makers from the spheres of business & government. If these people are invited to speak they tend to speak historically; “this is what we have achieved”, or “this is the policy that we have signed”. They may give loose ideas of where they may be headed in the future, but very rarely do you hear clear commitments and promises (and I would include myself in that criticism!). It is much easier dealing with historical facts, than setting yourself up for a potential fall. But we do need to put together a safe, but constructive, atmosphere, where the various stakeholders (politicians, business, public sector, the Disability sector, and people with
disabilities) can work together to produce a clear, agreed framework of implementation (with goals, targets, deadlines, responsibilities, reporting procedures, budgets, etc).

We need to empower the decision makers with the right information; “right we have signed this piece of paper – but what does that really mean for us?”
Each person attending should be fully conversant with all the various documentation.

1. Why is this convention necessary?
2. What are our collective responsibilities under this convention?
3. What legislative changes will have to be made to ensure compliance?
4. What is the timeline for the different events?
a. Ratification
b. Adherence

This then gives us the information to tackle the various issues arising from the convention:
1. How are we going to implement our commitments?
2. Where is the money coming from for implementation?
3. Who is responsible for each stage (Government, Public Sector, Private Sector, commercial, Disability sector, etc.?)
a. How do we educate these people of their responsibilities?
b. How do we ensure that these people have the necessary tools to comply?
4. What reporting procedures are there for each phase?
a. What penalties or recognition is there for non compliance or compliance?
b. How will different parties measure compliance? (in house, or external)
5. How are we going to ensure compliance to any legislation? (We all know how useless any legislation is, if it is not enforced).
6. What support measures need to be in place to assist all the different parties are equipped to comply?
a. Who will provide these support measures?
b. Where will the budget come from?
7. What are the various targets and deadlines for each phase, to ensure that we meet our overall commitment?
8. What structures do we need in place to ensure that these targets can be met?
9. What skills shortages can we identify?
a. What plans need to be put in place to rectify these skills shortages?

This should give us a clear road map of implementation with achievable goals and signposts along the way. There needs to be a monitoring / policing procedure built into each stage, and the results have to be published. As we are not the only signatories to the convention, we should also be able to gauge our progress against other countries, and share our collective experiences of implementation. We are part of a global village, and there are a huge number of signatories to this convention, it therefore makes sense to have close ties with other countries and international organisations during implementation. Here would need to be clear avenues where these lines of information can be fed back to the necessary parties.

We can only achieve this if we can ensure that we have the right decision makers from the different sectors. This cannot be achieved by one group of stakeholders alone, but will need a detailed public / private partnership arrangement. We have to ensure that there are enough high level decision makers from each sector, so that they can agree to the basic road map, and assign the necessary resources to each phase to ensure that there is adequate funding to achieve compliance. To give yet another conference without these players would be a waste of everyone’s time. We would need to set up working groups to be able to reach conclusions, within those groups there has to be representatives from the different stakeholders that have real decision making authority. I think we shall have to conclude some agreements / arrangements that would allow each sector to have different representatives that are empowered to make decisions on behalf of the sector that they represent. The challenge is to get the right players – I don’t think that another conference packed with individual PWD’s & junior members of different HR departments will work. The conference would have to be aimed at executive level.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Users force Dell to resurrect XP

Wow! I know that Microsoft were aiming for the Wow factor; well, it has worked here! Wow!: how bad is the Vista experience for customers to want to have 'old' software instead of the latest versions? How does Micrsoft hope to get people to convert (at huge cost) to Vista, when this sort of thing happens? There are many aspects of Vista that I think would be useful to my (mostly pen-based) computing, but I am not jumping to change just yet. I am hoping that Mac will bring out their long awaited Tablet PC eventually. That way the competition should improve the experience...

BBC NEWS | Technology | Users force Dell to resurrect XP: "Responding to customer demand Dell has restarted selling new PCs with Windows XP installed on them.

The decision reverses a policy begun in January that meant Windows Vista was the only operating system available on almost all new home machines.

The change came after Dell's feedback site was swamped with calls for the return of the venerable software."

Take action: Stop harassment of activists in Zimbabwe - Amnesty International

Why is the world not interested? I know that the South African government is trying to work quietly with the regime in Harare, but there needs to be more peer pressure from different leaders. I am appalled when Mugabe is treated as a hero, or when he is criticised it is some form of racism. Those that know me, know that many of my heroes are African...and I firmly believe that the only living world statesman is South African - Mandela, but the African Union needs to be more public and strong in its condemnation of Mugabe, or we shall all ultimately lose out.

Take action: Stop harassment of activists in Zimbabwe - Amnesty International: "Take action: Stop harassment of activists in Zimbabwe

On 11 March 2007, about 50 activists were arrested in Zimbabwe after attempting to attend a public meeting in defiance of a three-month ban imposed by the authorities. The activists, including leaders of the main opposition party in Zimbabwe -- the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) -- were severely beaten during arrest and later tortured while in police custody.

Police shot dead one of the activists, Gift Tandare, the youth chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) local structure in a Harare suburb."

Doing my little bit, and showing my support...in the hope that they may still find Alan Johnston alive. I use the BBC extensively, for news, and research. I believe that they offer a valuable, relatively unbiased report on most news events. I wish that people would realise that a free media is a prerequisite for a free world. Without reporters like Alan Johnston, we would not be able to learn about a whole raft of different issues. Somebody, and possibly some organisation knows...we can only hope that enough pressure can be applied, not just from politicians, to allow us to find out what has happened, and hopefully find Alan alive.

BBC NEWS | Business | Pressure grows on World Bank boss

This is the quite dreadful neo-conservative who was foisted on the World Bank by the Bush administration to deal with the perceived corruption within that organization. Is this a case of gamekeeper turned poacher? I believe that it is yet another example of cronyism and blatant corruption within the neo-conservative ranks of the present White House administration. Their arrogance and hypocrisy never fail to amaze (and shock) me. Shock and awe indeed!

BBC NEWS | Business | Pressure grows on World Bank boss: "In an editorial, Britain's Financial Times newspaper called for Wolfowitz to step down.

'If the president stays, (the World Bank) risks becoming an object not of respect, but of scorn, and its campaign in favour of good governance not a believable struggle, but blatant hypocrisy,' it said."