Dear Members of the International Consultative Committee and Friends of ICEVI:
It is a pleasure to write to you through this second issue of the ICEVI Newsline; particularly since there is much good news to report since the last issue of the Newsline landed in your electronic mailbox.
We had very good feedback after the first issue of Newsline; and one rather consistent suggestion. "Could the President be a bit more brief in his letter?". A point well taken; now lets see if I can follow up on that suggestion.
Perhaps the happiest moment I have had during the past six months was when Harry Svensson accepted the position of Vice President. Harry has been doing a lot of great work for ICEVI and we are very grateful to him for his contributions, and to the Board of Directors of the Tomteboda Resource Center for their support of Harry's work. You will be hearing directly from Harry later in this issue.
While I still feel that the greatest challenge we face as an organization is putting ICEVI on a more solid financial footing; we have made some good progress during the past year. ONCE has pledged to provide Spanish language interpreters for the next world conference and is making a very significant contribution (almost US$40,000) to ICEVI's programs in the Latin American region. To ONCE we say "muchas gracias, amigos". We have also received support f or regional
Projects and other ICEVI activities from the Asia Foundation for Blindness Prevention, the Aurora Ministry, Christoffel Blindenmission and Sight Savers International. Recently Foundation Dark and Light Blind Care wrote to us to say that they were also interested in reviewing some regional projects that they might be able to support. To each of these organizations, that are contributing to our shared mission of strengthening the ICEVI regions so that they may work vigorously for equal educational access, we are deeply indebted. While the work behind these achievements was shared by many, I want to say a special word of thanks to our Treasurer, Carla Herrera for her work. You will hear more from Carla on the longrange plans we are working on to strengthen ICEVI's financial base later in this issue of Newsline.
I am very pleased to tell you that Harry Svensson and I recently met with Kicki Nordstrom the newly elected President of the World Blind Union. I am confident, following that meeting, and a separate meeting I held with Arne Husveg, WBU's 1st Vice President, that there will be a much improved level of cooperation and collaboration between ICEVI and WBU in the months and years ahead. However, such collaboration must take place at all levels of our organizations; particularly through our regional units. At the end of this issue of Newsline, you will find a list of new WBU Regional Chairpersons. I encourage all of you to reach out to WBU to find ways in which we can work together, particularly at the regional level, to achieve our mutual goals of equalizing educational access for blind persons everywhere.
Last month I met with Hans Welling and Herman of the Host Committee for our 50th Anniversary World Conference in 2002. Planning is well underway with a Host Committee under the able leadership of Hans Welling and a Program Committee ably led by Heather Mason. The call for papers will be mailed out by the Conference Secretariat and will soon appear on our website <www.icevi.org>.
You, the members of the Executive Committee have been very patient as we have postponed the Executive Committee meeting on two occasions. Everyone seems to understand that these postponements were related to circumstances beyond our control. While it will not be possible to hold the Executive Committee meeting in the Middle East, as we had hoped, I want to acknowledge the tremendous effort that the members of the Middle East Committee have put into trying to organize the meeting in Amman next month. However, we have been advised by Abdul Moh. Abu Jarbou, our regional chairperson and His Royal Highness Prince Raad, our honorary regional chairperson that it would be advisable, at this time, to select another location.
Having looked at several venues the Principal Officers have decided to hold the Executive Committee meeting on the weekend of May 4-6 in Chihuahua, Mexico, the home of our Treasurer Carla Herrera. Later in this issue our very efficient Secretary, Nandini Rawal will be providing those of you who are members of the Executive Committee with the details related to that meeting. In March we will send you the agenda for the meeting along with background papers on a number of the agenda items.
Well, I am trying to keep that promise of brevity, so I will close this letter and simply tell you how very happy and proud I am to be working with such a wonderful team of principal officers; Bill, Carla, Harry and Nandini.
I also want to use this opportunity to acknowledge the wonderful support I received from Dr. Bernadette Kappen and the members of the Board of Managers of the Overbrook School for the Blind and from my able Administrative Assistant Ms. Wenru Niu. Without them, my work as your President would not be possible.