Harapan OKU pada 2005	"I really feel like cyring"	SimeTyre sumbang 16 buah tayar	Reserved spots are only for the disabled
Thoughtful Gesture	Good move but it	Genting tarik pengunjung	Golongan OKU beri sumbangan
JPJ ruling irks the disbled	No handicap to leading normal lives	"Hear us please, Telekom!"	No handicap to leading normal lives

Disabled Hope That New Law In 2005 Will Break Down Barriers
By Santha Oorjitham


KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 31 (Bernama) -- Physically disabled Malaysians say the country still has a long way to go in removing barriers that prevent them from playing a bigger role in the economy and in society.

But they are hoping that a new law due to be introduced in 2005 will make a fresh start towards breaking down such obstacles and ensuring their rights and access to public amenities.

Quadriplegics Francis Siva and his wife Gurdip Kaur, for example, could not take the express train to KL International Airport together, because each train has only one wheelchair bay.

Wheelchair-bound civil servant Ramlah Md. Jalee has to attend regular meetings outside her office and has to put up with so many ordeals when it comes to parking her car and using the toilets at most buildings.

"These architectural barriers have to come down so that we can pursue an education and then employment, giving us a higher standard of living and enabling us to pay taxes," said Ramlah, who is head of the Information Ministry's foreign monitoring station in Klang, Selangor.
In October, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said a draft bill for the disabled was being finalised and would be brought to the Cabinet early next year by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry.

The new Act would streamline all efforts to assist the disabled, which up till now have come under different Acts. Najib said it would emphasise their rights, as well as ways to design buildings and amenities which are more disabled-friendly.

Leaders from the community have met officials of the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry and contributed their suggestions for the new Act.

"I hope in the New Year, the Act will be passed as soon as possible and a timeframe will be given for buildings and services to comply," said Siva, who is president of the Independent Living and Training Centre in Rawang, Selangor.

He noted that when the Act is passed, the physically disabled can sue if public buildings are not accessible and do not meet their needs.

But he has high praise for a couple of projects: "We love Putrajaya, where we can move around freely. And Mid-Valley Megamall provides parking near the lifts, scooters for us and even assistance to carry things."

The right of access to communication and information tops the list of Mohamad Sazali Shaari, president of the Malaysian Federation of the Deaf (MFD) and president of the Malaysian Confederation of the Disabled, who pointed out that the deaf cannot use the emergency phone services.

The MFD has asked the government for an SMS emergency alert service similar to that provided by Telekom Malaysia subsidiary MTN Networks in Sri Lanka.

"We want information to be visual," the activist said, explaining that the deaf cannot hear fire alarms and doorbells and cannot use intercom panels at building entrances. The MFD suggested that visual alarms such as flashing lights and electronic signboards be installed to provide information.

Wheelchair-bound Malaysians said there are many barriers to taking public transport.
They cannot ride the monorail because there are no lifts and they cannot take buses because the bus doors are not level with the pavement.

"When you don't have structures such as ramps and lifts, you deny our existence," said columnist and activist Anthony Thanasayan, who was born with spinabifida and had to stop school after Standard 4, when he could no longer walk because the school did not have wheelchair access.
"For 2005, I wish for changes to happen in my own neighbourhood. That would convince me that things are changing for the disabled," he said.

Ramlah, who was born with congenital lower limb growth disorder, has yet to see disabled-friendly public toilets, except at the airport and in five-star hotels.}

As a child, she was unable to use the toilets in school. "I had to hold on until I got home," she recalled. Now she suffers from constipation and urinary tract problems.

And even today, in most government buildings, she cannot manoeuvre her wheelchair into the toilet stalls. "I have to leave the door ajar while I use the toilet," she said. Since it is such an embarrassing experience, she said, "I try to hold on until I can't stand it anymore."

Ramlah said that in school and in the job market the disabled were not given the course of study or jobs they really wanted but were stereotyped because they were disabled.

At her secondary school near Pendang, Kedah, she wanted to enter the Science stream but could not because the laboratory table was too high.

At the University of Malaya, she wanted to take up law or pharmaceutical studies but had to take creative and descriptive writing because it was the only building which was accessible for her.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the rights of the disabled to full participation and "equalisation" with other citizens, noted Ramlah.

"But how can we participate when there is no barrier-free environment and the disabled are left behind, even in education?" she said.
-- BERNAMA

Road tax benefit for disabled runs into an obstacle
Wheel Power by Anthony Thanasayan

WHEN my pal and colleague in the disability circle G. Francis Siva – president of the disabled self-help Independent Living and Training Centre in Rawang, Selangor (ILTC) – and I were about to make a very important speech in a room filled with people in June of last year, we both had butterflies in our stomach.

However, even to say that is quite an understatement. Especially when you consider that we were at a pre-Budget national consultation event that was held in the Ministry of Finance (MoF) building in Putrajaya, attended by several hundred VIPs and some of the most active NGO groups in the nation.

Our purpose was to address the most important man in the country at that time, our then Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad. Dr M was also the chairman of the event.

And what we were about to ask him had the potential of making a marked impact in the lives of Malaysians with disabilities all across the nation:

1) A reduction in road tax fees for drivers with disabilities.
2) To significantly increase the welfare allowance for all disabled Malaysians. My tetraplegic (paralysed from the neck down) chum who carefully assisted me the night before to narrow down our points to only two achievable items, sat behind me and didn’t move a muscle when it was my turn to address the chairman. And in less than 10 minutes, it was all over.

A round of applause from the audience greeted Dr Mahathir when he surprised everyone with his announcement that went even further than what Siva and I had requested – to grant a complete road tax waiver for disabled drivers with locally manufactured cars. (Weeks and months later, when the official 2004 Budget was delivered, we were delighted to discover that the PM had also generously granted our second request.)

As for the road tax exemption news, the MoF staff later told me that it was a first time that such a decision had been reached then and there by the Prime Minister!
How did we manage to pull it off, you ask? Simple! We just spoke to the Prime Minister from our hearts. And the Premier reciprocated by listening with his heart!

Dr M hardly needed any convincing when we explained to him how much disabled Malaysians didn’t want any sympathy or wished to be patronised but sincerely valued every opportunity of a little push every now and then from the government to help us realise and achieve our dreams to be an ordinary citizen just like everyone else.

And clearly, Siva and I weren’t the only ones in the hall after who were enthused and bubbling with joy over the development. Before Dr M left the building, he made his way right up to where we were and whispered a quip to us as we thanked him profusely.

“Now, (just because you have your tax waiver) don’t go speeding around in your vehicles, you hear,” he said.

So you can imagine how completely dismayed we were when we learnt about the Road Transport Department’s (RTD) year-old directive (that many of us didn’t know about until now) that requires drivers with disabilities to turn up personally at RTD’s doorstep with their disabled IDs when renewing their road tax exemptions.

According to newspaper reports quoting RTD officials, the move was to stop the alleged abuse of fake Welfare Department tags to obtain the exemptions.

The RTD’s decision immediately drew flak from many quarters of the disabled calling the move uncaring and arbitrary. Referring to allegations of forgery of disabled IDs, the over vice-president of the 300-strong Society of Disabled Persons of Penang, Tan Kuan Aw, who has been using a wheelchair for almost 50 years because of polio, decried any attempts by anyone to “try and make disabled drivers the scapegoats and subsequently suffer for something that isn’t their fault at all.”
“The RTD ruling is not practical as it causes more inconvenience for disabled drivers because one has to realise that not all RTD offices in the country are wheelchair accessible or friendly,” he concluded.

Disabled driver for about 25 years Antony Leopold from Kuala Lumpur, who uses two walking sticks and callipers (leg braces) on both legs to get around, implores the RTD to have a heart for the less physically able like him.

“There are varying types of disabilities and each one presents their own set of problems for the person who has such a condition,” he points out.

“It doesn’t take much imagination for one to put himself or herself in the shoes, so to speak, of someone in a wheelchair and who also uses callipers at the same time.”

Leopold urges those in the RTD who came up with the ruling without first asking the disabled about the feasibility of such an idea to consider the following points:

“The time the sufferers has to painstakingly take in order to put on their callipers, and get their wheelchairs in and out of their cars – dragging each leg laboriously after the other out of the car before the individuals have to repeat the lengthy and cumbersome exercise all over again that is often fraught with risks should a mishap occur.

“Then again, what about other problems like bladder and bowel concerns?” asks Leopold who is married and a father-of-three.

“Do we really need to thoughtlessly and needlessly subject such people to suffer the indignity of going through all that instead of taking up the challenge to find more caring and considerate ways to solve the problem?”

He suggests that if meeting the disabled face to face is absolutely essential, then RTD officers should come to the homes of the disabled to carry out the procedure.

“This would be more practical than expecting the disabled to come out to them,” concludes the 52-year-old Leopold.

As for Siva and I who were in a privileged position to request the tax exemption from the former Prime Minister, the ruling comes as a step backward in offering support for disabled drivers in the country.

Not only that, it is also an unexpected slap to our faces and, in a way, causing a stumbling block to the good intentions and parting gift that our former Prime Minister had so graciously bestowed upon the disabled just before he left office last year.

G. Francis Siva, president of the disabled self-help Independent Living and Training Centre in Rawang, Selangor, being helped into his car by two of his helpers. It’s this kind of inconvenience that the disabled have to put up with when they need to present themselves anywhere, for example, at the RTD.	Society of Disabled Persons of Penang president Tan Kuan Aw (in wheelchair) being pushed by State Executive Councillor Koay Kar Huah. They were trying out the then new ramp at the Batu Lancang market last year.

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