Abroad with Hilary: Human Rights Seminar

What a week! We had a Human Rights Seminar here Thursday-Saturday, and at the same time, I prepared a teacher’s training for Saturday. So first the Human Rights Seminar – it was sponsored by Perkins and Harvard Law, so both Deborah Gleason from Perkins (for all you Johansings, yes, she knew and traveled with Bob Buckley, and only had wonderful things to say about him!) and Michael Stein from Harvard were here to help lead and take part in the meetings. They were very supportive of my internship and learning, and I was thus able to attend not only the Seminar, but their meetings with Resources for the Blind as well. From a development standpoint, it was a completely different side from what I’ve seen here, and a very helpful one to see.

The Human Rights Seminar focused on education and was entitled “Status and Future Prospects for Children with Disabilities;” it was a follow up to a meeting in July. During the meeting, various “important” people from universities, government departments and nongovernmental organizations spoke of the part they play, or could play, in ensuring human rights of children with disabilities as related to education. There are many laws protecting people with disabilities in the Philippines and they have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but there is huge gap between laws and reality. That’s what the group wants to change.

We also heard testimonies from parents, many of which were very moving and clearly outlined the violation of human rights of their children. There are so many stories about principals simply saying no, we won’t accept a child because we don’t want to be seen as a “SPED school” or we aren’t ready to universities requiring deaf students to hire their own interpreter and blind students to bring a guide (even though they don’t need one). Insurmountable barriers are created for students with disabilities. In the end, there were commitments made, such as the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) asking for a case to bring through as a model, the University of the Philippines law school asking for 10 cases for their law students to work on this summer, and DepEd telling parents to come to them when a student is turned away, they’ll accompany the parents to the school! Will these commitments stand? Well, on Saturday, we reviewed the commitments made at the meeting last July, and the progress made. Almost all had been accomplished, or were ongoing! (yet these were mostly done by teacher and parent organizations) As Debbie said, it’s nice to work in the Philippines because everyone is so dedicated. It’s true – it seems that there are events or meetings or whatever every weekend, and so many teachers, administrators and parents attend. They are very dedicated to giving their children the chances they deserve. So all in all, it was an excellent opportunity for me to hear what really is going on, and also to see the steps being taken to change it. And to see that change is happening!

So that took up a good amount of time and energy last week. On top of it, I was taking notes throughout all the meetings. I’ll have to read through them now, and then they will be made into a legal document to pass on the CHR to begin the process of filing a case. And that’s how it works!

When not in meetings, I was preparing a presentation for the RBI teachers regarding speech and language. The teachers from Davao and Cebu were in town for the meeting, so it was now or never. It all went smoothly on Saturday, I presented for about an hour and gave them all the useful forms, so hopefully they’ll be able to use this information. I was told that in Mindanao, the southern island, there is only one speech therapist. One! That means a 2-3 year wait if you want to see her. Also, there is only one university in the country that has an SLP program, and it’s in Manila. So no wonder they all go abroad – there aren’t that many of them to begin with! Creating more university programs to increase the numbers of students trained seems like a necessary first step.

My time at Commonwealth Elementary was officially completed with a big party for me on Tuesday. Each class had a dance or song performance, and some of the parents even got up and did a number! Then I sat in a chair in the middle of the room and smiled for the next ten minutes as various groups came up for pictures. The joys of not blending in… The sign interpreting during the event, or lack of, I just don’t understand. Half of the students in the room were deaf, yet no one interpreted for them! The teacher started, but didn’t really continue. I had a student next to me so I took over the job and interpreted, which was quite amusing for me, as I signed about how wonderful I was and gave myself many thanksJ

On Sunday, we left the house at 6am for the PAVIC (parent advocacy group) V.I.S.T.A. event – “Visually Impaired Sports Training and Advocacy”. There were 100-150 VI students (they brought their parents too) who participated in running, biking, table tennis and swimming events. It’s really amazing what PAVIC, the parents organization, organizes for the kids. The event went until 5pm, but I thankfully caught a ride back to the house at 10:30am – I’m glad I saw part of the event, but I needed a rest more than anything!

I start with LINK tomorrow and I have various school visits set up. I’m looking forward to a much more laid-back work atmosphere this month – I hope I’m right!