INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR EDUCATION OF PEOPLE WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
NEWSLINE - OCTOBER 2004
Message from the President:
October 19, 2004
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
Later this week I leave for San Jose, Costa Rica to participate in the ICEVI Central American sub-regional conference and a meeting of the ICEVI principal officers. This marks the start of what promises to be a very busy year ahead.
ICEVI has regional conferences scheduled for the West Asia and Pacific regions in January, East Asia in February, and Europe in August. Add to this, other important meetings at The World Bank, the United Nations and in South Africa, Spain, Ghana, China and Vietnam and you will see that ICEVI is making important contributions at many levels and in many places. In the pages that follow you will find more details related to these and other activities that your organization is working on.
As you can imagine, all of this does not happen without a lot of hard work. I am truly grateful to have a team around me that makes all of this possible; including a Secretary General whose capabilities and energy are unmatched anywhere. This level of activity is, I believe, a barometer of the increasing presence of ICEVI in all regions of the world as we work toward our shared vision of a world in which all children and youth with visual impairment have access to appropriate high quality education.
It also takes financial support and commitment to achieve these goals. For example, without the support of my own organization, the Overbrook School for the Blind, much of what I do on behalf of ICEVI would not be possible. This is just one small example of the loyal support that ICEVI has been blessed with for many years. While we are grateful to this cadre of traditional supporters we are also very conscious of the need to broaden our base of support if we are to continue the momentum that has been achieved in the past few years
In the near future many of you will be receiving a direct appeal from ICEVI that will ask you to pitch in and support the work that we have begun and that we must expand. I hope we can count on you to move forward this campaign to assure no child with a visual impairment is denied access to an education.
This issue of NEWSLINE will provide you with a glimpse at the many varied activities ICEVI has undertaken to move forward our commitment to “education for all”.
We hope that as you review what has been achieved and what is planned you will become as convinced as I am that “an investment in ICEVI is an investment in the future of blind and low vision children everywhere”.
With my warm personal wishes I remain,
Sincerely,
Larry Campbell
President
INGOs Policy on EFA in the offing
Individuals and organizations around the world are applauding the joint educational
policy statement of the ICEVI and the World Blind Union released at the Africa
Forum in May 2004. The Christoffel Blindenmission, which had already finalized
a joint policy statement on education in collaboration with the Sight Savers
International, has proposed that a joint INGO policy be formulated by incorporating
appropriate strategies listed in educational polices of various organizations.
As ICEVI is seeking the assistance of Governments, UN bodies, and international
non-government developmental organizations to become stakeholders in the EFA
campaign, a joint committee comprising representatives from ICEVI, World Blind
Union, CBM, and SSI has been constituted to work on this INGO strategy of education
for all children with visual impairment. This policy will be finalized during
the early 2005 to provide guidelines to the international community to implement
EFA. The Educator will carry more information on this INGO policy on education
in its subsequent issues.
ICEVI China Meeting
China is the largest country of the world and has significant population of
persons with visual impairment. The China Network of ICEVI organized a meeting
of the Principals of the School for the Blind at Kunming City, China from 22
to 24 July 2004 to create an awareness on inclusive education approach as one
of the viable options to achieve education for all children with visual impairment.
More than 40 Principals from the Special Schools attended this meeting. Grace
Chan, Treasurer and Mani, M.N.G. Secretary General of ICEVI made a joint presentation
on the activities of ICEVI to the participants. The participants unanimously
endorsed the resolution that a national network meeting involving Government
and Non-Government agencies be organized in the near future to discuss at length
the process of inclusion and also deliberate on how special schools can serve
as resource centres for the promotion of inclusion. Based on the resolution
of the Kunming meeting, the China Network has sent a proposal to ICEVI to organize
a national conference on inclusion in the city of Nanjing during the first quarter
of 2005. This is a step forward to formulate strategies for inclusion in the
vast continent of China. International Non-Government Developmental Organisations
are also invited along with various Government and Non-Government organizations
in China to deliberate on this key issue. Look for more news on the website
of ICEVI or in the January 2005 issue of The Educator, ICEVI’s Magazine
Strengthening ICEVI Contacts in North Africa Region
ICEVI believes that only strong networking at the regional level can enrich
services for persons with visual impairment. ICEVI has been working on this
regional networking in all seven regions and the results are rewarding. The
networks have resulted in appropriate policy formulation, sharing of human resources,
exchange of knowledge, materials, and technology, to name a few. ICEVI has been
attempting to build a network in the north Africa Region and in this connection,
the Secretary General Mani and Dr. Sawsan El Messiri, Deputy Regional Chairperson,
North Africa region of ICEVI met with Dr. Akef El Maghraby in Dubai on 22 August
2004. Many contacts from the Northern Africa countries have been obtained for
this networking and as an initial step, ICEVI will be making a presentation
at the North Africa Conference of Ophthalmologists to be held in Tunis on November
27, 2004. ICEVI believes that the Tunis meeting will establish a close network
of medical professionals, educators, government agencies, parents, disabled
peoples’ organizations, etc., to work together for augmenting services
to persons with visual impairment in the vast north-African continent.
ICEVI uses Technology for Information Dissemination
ICEVI is taking maximum advantage of the technology for the dissemination of
information around the world. The website of ICEVI has been refined over the
last two years, and the current website www.icevi.org is fully accessible to
persons with visual impairment. Besides its accessibility, the website provides
a wealth of information about visual impairment. The past issues of The Educator,
Newsline, and other publications of ICEVI can be downloaded from the website
without any difficulty. The website also provides a link page consisting of
more than 60 reputed organizations working in the area of visual impairment
so that a person logging on to ICEVI’s website has the facility to access
the websites of all these leading organizations around the world. Log on to
ICEVI’s website to experience a world of difference.
Though the information about the regions of ICEVI is updated periodically on the main website, three of the seven regions have also launched their own website providing more information about the regional activities.
The Europe website was the first regional website of the ICEVI. It covers a wealth of information from the countries in Europe region and it can be seen by logging on to www.icevieurope.org
The Latin America region’s website is in Spanish and it is used for disseminating ICEVI’s activities to the Spanish speaking countries. Enjoy this website by logging onto www.icevi-americalatina.com.ar . The West Asia region’s website is the latest one to be launched. It can be seen at the address www.iceviwestasia.org . Other regions of ICEVI are also working on regional websites and all these are linked with the main website of ICEVI.
One of the strategic goals of ICEVI finalized in 2002 and being put into action since the beginning of the current quadrennium purports to make use of technology for the optimum dissemination of information to its clientele. ICEVI is glad that this objective is being realized and hopes that technology can be further used for information exchange for professionals in the nook and corner of the world. Visit our websites and get yourself acquainted with ICEVI’s multifarious activities around the world.
Projects under the Drs. Richard Charles and Esther Yewpick Lee Charitable
Foundation Grant (LFG)
Unlike 2003, the projects in 2004 under Drs. Richard Charles and Esther Yewpick
Lee Charitable Foundation have been more focused on specific areas. A total
of 64 projects are underway in the Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and West
Asia regions of ICEVI and most of these projects are centred around effective
teacher preparation, teaching of mathematics and science, low vision, multiple
disabilities, and inclusion strategies. Wherever possible, the support of the
international organizations working in these regions is enlisted for these projects.
ICEVI is grateful to the Lee Charitable Foundation for its continuous support
to help thousands of teachers in building their capacities to provide effective
services to children with visual impairment throughout the world. The experiences
gained from these projects during 2003 and 2004 will be useful in planning various
capacity building strategies in ICEVI’s global campaign of education for
all children with visual impairment.
IAPB General Assembly
ICEVI is glad that the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness
(IAPB) is focusing on education and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities
under its comprehensive eye care services. The substantial progress made at
the international level with the Vision 2020 programme launched by the IAPB
in collaboration with the WHO provides a testimony to the synergistic effects
of international non-governmental development organisations, WHO, and a professional
body like the IAPB to prevent avoidable blindness by the year 2020. As services
for persons with visual impairment are spread over a continuum such as prevention,
curative measures, education, and comprehensive rehabilitation, the IAPB brought
together a number of organizations involved in education and rehabilitation
to its General Assembly organized at Dubai from 19 to 24 September 2004 to interact
with the medical professionals on how they can work together to address the
needs of incurably blind persons too. ICEVI organized a symposium during the
IAPB General Assembly, which was attended by Kicki Nordstrom, President World
Blind Union, Dr. Hannah Faal, outgoing President of IAPB among others. An ICEVI
poster session was arranged and viewed by a majority of the medical professionals
in attendance. ICEVI made a suggestion that education and rehabilitation related
matters be presented in the plenary sessions of the future conferences so that
all medical professionals attending the general assembly are exposed to the
need and methodologies of rehabilitation measures. As ICEVI is in the process
of finalizing a perspective plan for Education For All children with visual
impairment by 2015, the General Assembly was useful in incorporating IAPB’s
success strategies in ICEVI’s plan of action for EFA.
Congratulations Dr. G.N. Rao, the new President of IAPB
ICEVI congratulates Dr. Gullapalli Nag Rao, LV Prasad Eye Hospital, India on
his election as the President of the IAPB for the period 2004-08. Dr. Rao is
a visionary and is a strong advocate of comprehensive eye care services including
education and rehabilitation as the components of eye care services. He has
also accepted to be a plenary speaker at the 12th World Conference of ICEVI
to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in July 2006 and therefore, the collaboration
between IAPB and ICEVI is becoming stronger.
Round Table on Inclusion at the World Bank
ICEVI will participate in a round table discussion on “Inclusion”
at the World Bank, 29 November to 1 December 2004. ICEVI will share its strategic
plan and EFA campaign with the participants of the round table discussion and
hopefully bring them on board to our EFA campaign. ICEVI has already assisted
the World Bank to develop their publication “EnVISIONing education in
low income countries”. This World Bank “tool kit” guides and
encourages World Bank development programs to include services for and persons
with visual impairment in ongoing World Bank development initiatives.
Research and Development Activities of ICEVI
The research work initiated by ICEVI in Uganda to identify factors that contribute
to effective inclusion of children with visual impairment at the local primary
schools is nearing completion. Data have been collected from teachers, parents,
visually impaired children, sighted children, policy planners, and other community
members. Children were also observed in regular schools and resource centres.
The final report of the study will be available during the first quarter of
2005.
The Overbrook School for the Blind through its regional program in Southeast
Asia is working with ICEVI on an initiative to develop a comprehensive mathematical
package that both organizations feel will be of tremendous help to teachers
throughout the world. The prototype materials have already been developed and
are being field-tested. Overbrook and ICEVI hope to have the final package ready
for distribution by mid to late 2005.
World Conference Update
The mood is upbeat for the forthcoming World Conference of ICEVI in Kuala Lumpur
from 16 to 21 July 2006. A reasonable registration fee, inspiring academic sessions,
affordable hotels, excellent flight connections, and nice weather – what
more could you ask for in getting away from your routine and enjoying the experience
of a lifetime. Come to Malaysia, an experience that is ”truly Asia”.
For the first time, we will offer on-line registration and abstract submission.
Just click “12th World Conference” on the menu bar of ICEVI’s
website www.icevi.org; you can see how exciting the 12th world conference will
be. All plenary and focus day speakers have been finalized and abstracts have
started coming in.
EFA Subscription
ICEVI is appealing to the international community to join its global campaign
of education for all. Be a subscribing member and take part in this global work
with visually impaired persons. For more information of the EFA subscription
mechanism, please see the July 2004 issue of The Educator or log on to the website
of ICEVI.
Regional and Sub-regional Conferences
During January and February 2005, ICEVI will be involved with the following
three major regional conferences.
1. The Regional Conference of the South Pacific Educators of the Visually Impaired (SPEVI) - Families and Educators – Facing Challenges, Melbourne, Australia, 9 to 14 January 2005. Contact: Dr. Jill Keeffe, Regional Chairperson, University of Melbourne, Dept. of Ophthalmology, Locked bag 8, East Melbourne, 8002, AUSTRALIA jillek@unimelb.edu.au
2. The ICEVI West Asia Regional conference - “Inclusion – the Right
Approach”, India International Centre, New Delhi: 23 to 25 January 2005.
Contact: Dr. Bhusan Punani, Regional Chairperson, Blind People’s Association,
Jagdish Patel Chowk Surdas Marg, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad 380015, INDIA
blinabad1@sancharnet.in
3. The East Asia regional conference - “Education For All: So Near Yet
So Far”, Jomtien, Pataya, Thailand, 20 - 23 February 2005. Contact: Mavis
Campos, Regional Chairperson, Cataract Foundation Philippines, Door # 4 Clejal
Bldg, B.S. Aquino Drive, 6100 Bacolod City, PHILIPPINES
mcampos@info.com.ph
Register now and also make your colleagues get registered. You can also become a speaker at these conferences. Contact the Regional Chairs immediately.
Important Forthcoming Events
Larry Campbell, President ICEVI, will attend the 6th General Assembly of the
World Blind Union to be held at Cape Town, South Africa from 6 to 10 December
2004. ICEVI and the WBU have also started the initiative of developing a standard
catalogue of equipment used by persons with visual impairment for their education
and rehabilitation activities. ICEVI will also be taking part in the Collective
Consultation of NGOs (CCNGOs)-UNESCO annual meeting to be organized at Beirut,
Lebanon from 9 to 11 December 2004 to review the progress made by various organizations
in achieving the global agenda of education for all. Vision 2005, an international
conference will be organized by the Royal National Institute for the Blind in
London from 4 to 8 April 2005. ICEVI will be organizing a symposium at this
conference.
Other International Collaborations
As a follow-up of the MOU signed by ICEVI with International Blind Sports Federation
(IBSA), the two organizations are contemplating on joint projects in the area
of sports and games for persons with visual impairment. ICEVI believes that
such collaborations will yield more constructive results in the regions. ICEVI
has also initiated discussions with the CBM International to organize a national
conference in Vietnam to develop a network of Government and non-Government
organizations to develop inclusive education and other context specific strategies
to achieve the goals of education for all children with visual impairment. This
conference is likely to take place during March 2005. ICEVI’s Africa region
has come out with a master plan of activities for the period 2004 – 2006
and the CBM and SSI have come forward to
co-fund many of the development projects initiated by this region.
Paralympics
Nearly 700 were persons with visual impairment participated in various events
at the recently concluded Paralympics held in Athens. The International Blind
Sports Federation (IBSA) took an active role in the activities pertaining to
persons with visual impairment. ICEVI together with IBSA will take forward the
momentum created at Athens. The July 2005 issue of The Educator will be devoted
to Sports and Recreation and it will give an opportunity to sportspersons who
are visually impaired to share their experiences. As sports is a vital area
for the overall development of children, its importance will be emphasised by
ICEVI in various forums in the future.
New Deputy Coordinator of UN-NGLS
Ms. Zehra Aydin has joined UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) as
Deputy Coordinator and Chief of NGLS's New York office. The Contact information
is Ms. Zehra Aydin, UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS), 1 UN Plaza,
DC1-1106, New York NY 10017. Telephone +1-212/963 3125, Fax +1-212/963 8712.
General e-mail: ngls@un.org
Principal Officers in Latin America Sub-Regional Conference
A meeting of some Principal Officers of ICEVI will be held in Costa Rica from
25 to 29 October 2004 to review ICEVI’s activities. The Sub-Regional Conference
of the Latin America region will also be organized at the same time in the same
venue and therefore, the Principal Officers will serve as resource persons for
various sessions of the conference and also discuss ICEVI agenda. The strategic
update of this meeting will be published in the January 2005 issue of The Educator.
EXCO Meeting in Madrid
The third meeting of the Executive Committee of ICEVI for the present quadrennium
will be hosted by ONCE and held in Madrid, Spain from 4 to 5 March 2005. As
the EFA Policy Paper of INGOs is likely to be endorsed at this meeting, this
EXCO assumes special significance.
Information Technology – Theme of the next issue of The Educator
The next issue (January 2005) of The Educator will be devoted for Information
and Communication Technology. ICT has tremendous application in the services
for persons with disabilities in general and visual impairment in particular
and therefore, the forthcoming issue is likely to bring ideas from all over
the world about the advancements in this field. As technology is being acknowledged
as a vehicle for augmentation of educational services by both developed and
developing countries, the January 2005 issue will bring perspectives of technological
impact from various parts of the world. Visually impaired persons who have conquered
the world of technology will be introduced through this issue. Those who are
desirous of sending articles may send a soft copy of the article to the Editor
Steve McCall s.mccall@bham.ac.uk with a copy to ICEVI Secretariat sgicevi@vsnl.net
Reminder from Steve McCall, Editor, The Educator
Dear Readers, July 2004 issue of The Educator, the bi-annual magazine of ICEVI
was the last you had received free-of-charge. If you wish to continue receiving
your personal copy of the magazine there will be a US $ 50 subscription fee
for the quadrennium; pro-rated to US$ 25 for the balance of the current quadrennium.
ICEVI will continue to send The Educator to schools and other organizations
free-of-charge. If you wish to receive a personal copy of The Educator for the
balance of the current quadrennium please remit a check for US $ 25 made payable
to ICEVI and mail it to: Treasurer – ICEVI, C/o. “Hong Kong Society
for the Blind” 248, Nam Cheong Street, Shamshuipo, Kowloon, Hong Kong,
China. E-mail: ce@hksb.org - Steve McCall, Vice-President, ICEVI and Editor,
The Educator.
This electronic Newsline of ICEVI comes to your mailbox in April and October every year. Please provide us the e-mail addresses of individuals and organizations that may be interested in receiving the Newsline and The Educator.
For further details, contact:
ICEVI Secretariat
International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment
IHRDC Campus
Sri Ramakrishna Vidyalaya Post
Coimbatore – 641 020
INDIA
Phone : 91-422 -2697530
Fax : 91-422 -2692353
e-mail : sgicevi@vsnl.net