Mohamed Omar Abdin
Message
Sincere greetings to distinguished readers;
It is my privilege to express my full gratitude for your interest in this booklet. My name is Mohamed Omar Abdin, the director of "The Committee for Assisting and Promoting Education of the Disabled in Sudan" (CAPEDS) and first year of master course of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
It's unbelievable that nine years has been past since I left my home in Sudan. I'm so pleased to establish this organization, with wonderful members in Japan where I spent one-third of my life.
Today, it is my great pleasure that our first publication, “Departure of CAPEDS” arranged to be issued. Since it is our first publication, we have discussed carefully among members what contents should be included to introduce ourselves.
As a conclusion, we reached to an agreement that it would be the best way for us to share our own thoughts and experiences which brought us together to establish this organization.
It is regrettable that we spent long time of two years in establishing this organization. However, we are sure, at the same time, the process, where we have struggled to making series of decisions with concerns and hesitation, shall light our journey.
Until now, we have supported people with disabilities in Sudan on individual and occasional basis; such as donation of slates and stylus for Braille to Department of Special Education in the Ministry of Education of Khartoum State. However we discovered that it was quite difficult to make effective contributions in this way.
To establish this organization, we went through various arguments. Some conflicts could even bring us to dissolution. Even though we had contradictory views, and, even we were in conflicts, each of us was aware of our common goal. Through the series of arguments and discussions, finally, we firmly determined to found a voluntary organization on March 2007.
To achieve the full participation and equality of people with disabilities in Sudan, is our ultimate goal.
You might wonder why we focus on education for people with disabilities instead of any other serious issue. Sudan faces prolonged civil war especially known as humanitarian crisis in Darfour. Again and again, we have been criticized several times that there is more significant and highly emergency field that we need to tackle.
As a person with disabilities, however, it is our duty to put focus on the issue of education for people with disabilities since it hasn't been prioritized in international community.
In the light of human security, how so-called vulnerable people, including people with disabilities, participate in their societies is significant matters especially in countries like Sudan where the social welfare is insufficient. Furthermore, United Nation's “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”, adopted last year, encouraged us to make one step forward as an organization "CAPEDS".
We undertake our duty to achieve the goal of Full Participation and Equality of people with disabilities, as people concerned. We strongly believe; it is education that empowers people with disabilities to design and realize their future as well as their lives. Hereby, we confirm that we shall walk with various friends and colleagues, hand in hand, on the journey to the ultimate goal. It made me impressed deeply the booklet has been accomplished to introduce our activity, also to declare our determination.
I'd like to thank to our CAPEDS members especially, Mr. Fukuchi, Ms. Imoto, and Ms. Ikeda, who had played core role in editing this booklet.
Mr. Saito, from Japan Africa Forum, is the one who kindly suggested the idea of this booklet. I'm so grateful to his generous advices. Finally, I'd express my appreciation to Mr. Omori who offered his house for our office. It is not exaggerate to say without each of your help and advice; we couldn't make a little step.
This summer, our organization CAPEDS has decided to apply for a new status as a legal NPO Person. The working body is just born here. We recognize our task to develop this newly born organization and conduct effective programs in the future. We wish for your generous guidance and advice for our activity.
With full of expectation, and with feeling our responsibility, CAPEDS is taking brand new step toward our final goal.
August, 2007 in Tokyo
Mission Statements
I. Our Mission
Republic of Sudan, situated in northern Africa, is the largest African country (2,500,000 km²) with a population of 35 million. Since its independence in 1956, Sudan has experienced consecutive civil wars and its situation is still unstable with humanitarian crisis in the Darfour region of West Sudan.
Based on the assumption conducted by International Organizations, the whole disabled population in Sudan is estimated at around 2 million, but no reliable research has been done so far. It is probable that more people became disabled due to a succession of civil wars. The budget allocated to education for people with disabilities (has been) insufficient, with limited resource, “most of which is spent on the military affairs”. Under the impact of UN economic sanctions (1996-2001),”the budget on education for people with disabilities was subjected to be reduced”. The Committee for Assisting and Promoting Education of the Disabled in Sudan (CAPEDS), therefore, decided to adopt “support for education of people with disabilities” as our basic policy, which has been completely ignored due to the lingering civil wars and the government’s financial difficulties. As repeatedly confirmed by “Universal Declaration of Human Rights" in 1948, “Convention on the Rights of the Child” in 1989, and “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” adopted last year, the right to education must be guaranteed for all, including people with disabilities.
Our project is designed to empower people with disabilities by education so that they will participate in creating a better society and achieve equality in their lives. Our final goal is, therefore, to achieve the full participation and equality of people with disabilities in Sudan.
II. Our Strategic Plans
To achieve our final goal mentioned above by supporting for education, we ? will focus our activities on the following respects;
1. Support Basic Education
Although everyone has the right to basic education, children with disabilities are marginalized from public education system. From the perspective of all the conventions on human rights as well as that of MDGs, trying to achieve universal primary education by the target date of 2015, more development in basic education for children with disabilities is of great urgency. Our specific activities will be;
- Donating Braille equipments
- Improving educational environment (for example by accommodating the children with Braille
textbooks)
- Holding seminars for parents and teachers.
2. Support ICT Education for Employment Promotion
Information equipment such as PC is a powerful tool for promotion of the participation of people with disabilities in the society. Especially for people with visual impairments, PC with speech recognition system will open further possibilities of communication with non-disabled people, which means that Information Technology is indispensable for employment. Therefore, we will support ICT education for employment promotion of people with disabilities. Our specific activities will be;
- Donating (screen reader) softwares (Arabic version) to University of Khartoum where 60 students with visual impairments are now registered.
- Training ICT teachers
- Implementing demonstration projects on the research of the support for education of the disabled students at University of Khartoum.
3. Promote Local Initiatives
CAPEDS will promote local initiatives in Sudan so that education for people with disabilities will be sustainable guaranteed in the society. Our specific activities will be;
- (Establishing) Structuring support system
- Holding (workshops) for all parties concerned in disability issue
- Awareness-raising to the public
4. Promote Sports Activities for people with disabilities
Leisure activities such as sports is an essential part of our life, helping us to enjoy our own relaxed time, as mentioned in Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (Article 30) Therefore, we are planning to promote sports activities for people with disabilities and provide good environment. Our specific activities will be;
- Holding (workshops) of blind soccer with Sudan Football Association
- Donating balls for blind soccer (which we have already started in 2003)
To implement our strategic plan above effectively, we will also be engaged in the following activities;
- Research on the actual situation of education for people with disabilities in Sudan
- Facilitating a network with other disability-related organizations or international cooperation groups
- Providing information on Sudan and education for people with disabilities in Sudan
- Fundraising for the implementation of our projects
III. Meaning of Our Activities
We consider the meanings of our activities based in Japan as follows.
Firstly, in Sudan, as education for the disabled has been always insufficient and international organizations focus on humanitarian aid or peace-building and reconstruction assistance, support for education is a matter of urgency. It does not matter whether the support will be given by public or private sector.
Secondly, our operation policy will be prepared by the exchange students with visual impairments from Sudan, occupying the greater part of the seats on the board of directors. Since they received education in Sudan and thus recognized well its problems, our operation policy, based on their point of view, can grasp the exact needs of education in Sudan. We believe that they will be able to contribute toward realization of the right to education (Article 24), the right to work (Article 27), the right to participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport (Article 30), all confirmed by “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”.
We consider the meanings of our domestic activities in Japan as follows.
Although Japan is the second largest buyer of the exports from Sudan, the problems in Sudan are not widely recognized. This is obvious from the fact that the media in Japan is less likely to feature human crisis in Darfour, compared to other foreign medias. By providing the information on Sudan actively, we believe that our activities will contribute to further understandings of education for people with disabilities in Japan. Free from stereotypes widely accepted in Japan, such as civil wars, refugees, hunger, and poverty, we would like to tell of people’s daily life in Sudan, the importance of education, and how education can give great hopes to people.
Lastly, we are planning to cooperate with the people engaged in social welfare and international cooperation. This will facilitate technology and information transfer to Sudan and lead to a good opportunity to examine strong and weak points of the Japanese social welfare. We will also contribute to Japan’s active commitment in international cooperation, mentioned under article 32 of Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
IV. New Start as a Legal NPO Person
CAPEDS, first created as a voluntary organization in March 2007, has decided to apply for a new status as a legal NPO Person. There are three main reasons for this decision. Firstly, legal entity is required for most of the applications for subvention. Secondly, we needed to find a solution to personal and thus unreliable accounting control. Lastly, considering the fact that Sudan, ex-British colony, attaches more importance to “titles” than Japan, CAPEDS should be officially authorized. We believe that the acquisition of legal entity is the key for our future activities.
Our Initial Activities
CAPEDS took a first step with the initiative of four Sudanese exchange students with visual impairment in Japan. We decided to start with what we could do, and that was donation of Braille equipments. We raised funds at a university festival and donated sets of slates and stylus and balls for blind soccer. The ad-hoc style of our activities based on personal wishes, however, had some inherent limitations. Thus, in February 2007, we decided to create CAPEDS as a voluntary organization, for more stable support for more people with disabilities in Sudan.
---Our achievement before 2007---
2004 : Donate one ball for blind soccer
August 2005 : Donate two balls for blind soccer to the Department of Sports in the Union of the Blind in Sudan.
Donate 300 sets of slates and stylus for Braille writing to the Department of Special Education in the Ministry of Education of Khartoum State.
December 2006 : Donate 25 sets of slates and stylus for Braille writing to
26 July, 2007