International day of the people with special needs

The handicapped are equal with the others

Five to ten percent of the population in Macedonia have some kind of handicap, whereas about 500,000 citizens of our country are directly or indirectly involved by their own handicap, handicap of a family member or handicap of a friend.

This year the international day of the people with special needs coincided with the NGO Fair - 4th Forum of the civil society in Macedonia. The organizations which work with people with special needs used the possibility to talk among each other, but also to present the things they have done so far. The association Polio Plus awarded the prizes “Vulkan” for the second time. This year the prizes went to the writer Branko Ortakovski for the novel “How to Reach the Lost Health”, to the painter Afredita Kiki for her works, and to Mile Stojkoski, for travelling from Prilep to Athens in his wheelchair.

The prizes consist of a golden medallion and financial reward of 15,000 and 30,000 denars, and they are awarded to people who contributed for the promotion of the rights and status of the people with special needs in the previous year.

During the NGO Fair, Polio Plus organized the panel “Media and handicap” on which the people with special needs told the journalists ten golden advice in reporting about them. They sent a message that they don’t want to be only a sad story, one-day sensation or someone whose destiny should be cried upon. The media must influence everyone’s consciousness that the handicapped are equal with the others. The handicapped need help because they need more time for the everyday activities, and their life will be much easier if all of us together succeed in removing the barriers, not only the architectural, but also the barriers in the consciousness in every one of us.

On the panel “One voice” the representatives of the Association of organizations for the disabled and the relatively newer organizations which work on the promotion and protection of the rights of the people with special needs debated and tried to bring closer their attitudes about the way they are going to act to fulfil their goals. This is a continuation of the discussions that have been going on for several months between these, conditionally said, two subjects which work with people with special needs.

Also the Interparliamentary lobby-group for people with special needs had its own presentation. The president Liljana Popovska talked about the results and plans. “What the Interparliamentary group has done so far is passing a Declaration for protection and promotion of the rights of the people with special needs, changing and supplementing the Law for employing disabled people, and esspecially important was the change of the statute for purchasing orthopaedic aids with which the fee was decreased from 40 per cent to 10 per cent”, explained Popovska. The next steps of the lobby-group for the rights of the people with special needs in the Parliament are systematic law, mechanisms for implementation and protection, and especially important are the plans to form a national council which would have a strategy to help the handicapped at a state level, as well as forming a fund at a state level that will function in favour of the people with special needs.

People with special needs received a promise by the MPs that by May 2005, when the days of the Macedonian Parliament will be held for the first time, they will be able to enter the highest legislative body freely and easily in their wheelchairs. The promise is that the ramp that should have been built many years ago, will finally be built.

 

Gonce Jakovleska