Madrid Conference

Richard Reiser

On the 20th-23rd March a European Congress on People with Disabilities was held in Madrid. It was attended by over 500 delegates from organisations for and of disabled people. Held under the EU Spanish Presidency, its aim was to talk about the social integration of disabled people. The organisers defined integration as when disabled people participate in daily life of society just like everyone else. Workshops took place in six areas :-

• Employment and vocational training
  
• Education
  
• Social Integration
  
• Accessibility
  
• Human Rights/Non Discrimination
  
• General Awareness

I was asked by the organisers to do one of the presentations in the last of these covering 2000 years of attitude and treatment of disabled people across Europe. We had a lively discussion and many useful points were made following up the discussion on attitudes, culture and the media. These discussions were much enhanced by Tara Flood’s presentation. The only problem was that the Head of Diversity at the BBC was the rapporteur. As a non-disabled black woman it was surprising how unfamiliar with our issues she was. The report back of the workshop bore little resemblance to what had actually taken place.

The other workshop I attended was on education. Here at least we had an accurate rapporteur, but we were unable to get a proper commitment to inclusive education. The reasons were the delicate political balancing act that eurocrats perform. With Italy, Spain, Sweden and Denmark having all disabled children educated in mainstream while in France and Germany there is still predominantly segregation. Others like the UK and Netherlands are in between and Greece is still operating institutions, not schools for some disabled children. The problems will be magnified with enlargement when 9 Eastern European countries apply to join.

The Conference built up to a Declaration which had been written and printed before the Conference but we were not allowed to read it until the last morning. The sessions were all well stage-managed with little space for discussion though the whole was well facilitated with simultaneous signing, and translation to French, English and Spanish. The workshops were stopped for a two-hour 3-course lunch with plenty of wine and certainly delegates got to meet each other.

As to the Declaration, while still confused on terminology e.g. people with disabilities rather than disabled people and although not mentioning the social model, it moved in the right direction and it can be summed up by the following quote:-

• Our vision
• Away from disabled people as objects of charity - and towards people as rights-holders
  
• Away from people with disabilities as patients - and towards people with disabilities as independent citizens and consumers.
  
• Away from professionals taking decisions on behalf of disabled people - and towards independent decision-making and taking responsibilities by disabled people on issues which concern them.
• Away from a focus on individual impairments - and towards removing barriers, revising social norms, policies, cultures and promoting accessible environment.
  
• Away from labelling people as dependents or unemployable - and towards an emphasis on ability and the provision of active support measures.
  
• Away from designing economic and social processes for the few - and towards designing a flexible world for the many.
  
• Away from unnecessary segregation in education, employment and other spheres of life - and towards integrating disabled people into mainstream
  
• Away from disability policy as an issue that affects special ministries - and towards inclusion of disability policy as an overall government responsibility.

Despite the lack of formal debate and the dominance in the plenaries of a few representatives of the European Disability Forum and Foundation ONCE (Blind organisation of Spain), the congress launched an attempt to get a European Treaty for Disabled People in 2003 - European Year of Disabled People. The European Disability Forum has already produced a draft Treaty which goes much further than current UK legislation and which the BCODP NC supports. European Disabled People’s Day in 2002 on 3rd December has a theme of education and hopefully by the end of 2003 Disabled People’s Rights to inclusion in education and all parts of life will have leapt forward.

How much will largely depend on the Disabled Peoples’ Movement and how we organise to involve far more disabled people in it. Full text is available on www.disabilityeuropeancongress.org

© Copyright British Council of Disabled People 2002