 Hello, everybody. My name is Judy Heumann. I'm the special advisor for international disability rights at the United States Department of State. And I'd like to welcome our other guest today, Ambassador John Steinberg. I'd like to say that the State Department is very excited about the fact that we are hosting this discussion today for International Day of Persons with Disabilities in order to talk about the issue of disability and development. And the theme of this day around the world is inclusion matters. And all of us here and the viewing audience who will look at this archived piece in the future will relate very much to the importance of disabled people being included in our societies. That's our basic raison d'etre, as disabled individuals to be able to fight for equality and for human rights. And the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities has been a very critical part, in a growing part of the world, in really enabling us to have more discussions with government and civil society, not only to help people understand the adverse effect that discrimination is having on our lives, the economic disparities that disabled people face, and subsequently the economic drain that occurs in our countries when we as disabled people and our families are not able to receive appropriate educations in order to be able to make meaningful contributions to the economy of our countries. Today, we will be learning from all of you through some of the questions that you're going to be asking and responses that we will put in more about the progress that is being made in your countries. And we just say very briefly, I had polio in 1949. I'm going to be 68 years old in a couple of weeks. I can't believe it. But I grew up in New York City as a disabled person at a time in the United States where we had no laws that protected the rights of disabled people. And as a result of that, I experienced the type of discrimination that I hear going on continually around the world. I was denied the right to go to school as a child because I was unable to walk. A teacher came to my house only for two and a half hours a week, which really meant that not only was I not receiving the same type of education as my brothers, for example, but also society had different expectations for what I was going to be able to contribute. I'm sure like many of you in the room who are disabled individuals or family members, families have played a very important role in really helping disabled children move into adulthood and fight for the rights of their children. And we have much to learn from family members to also encourage them and support them as they work to include their children in society. Like you, I grew up in a society where physical accessibility was very, very limited. At that point, there wasn't even anything called information computer technology. Computers were something that we're being dreamed about, but we didn't have access to. And at the time I was born, we were just starting to get television. So we can see the dramatic changes that have gone on in US and countries around the world. We've been benefited here in the US by a strong civil society disability rights movement, which has evolved over the decades, where we really learned that it was critically important for us to participate in our political process. And that through that participation, it has enabled us to be able to enact many pieces of legislation. I'm very happy to say that I see this going on in countries in the world. And I'm sure that everyone in the rooms today are actively involved in educating legislators and helping to organize disabled people and to get disabled people with different types of disabilities to be working collaboratively together. We've seen in my view some very important changes. The Millennium Development Goals, which came out in 2000, that completely ignored disabled people. The Sustainable Development Goals, which have just been enacted, that does include disability across the board. This is going to be another very critical area that we will have to be working on as we move towards implementation of the Disabilities Treaty. So I'd like to thank you all for being here. I look forward to a very open discussion and questions. And I'd like to turn it over to my colleague, Ambassador Steinberg, who is currently the Executive Director for an organization in the United States, which is an international organization called World Learning. Don has a great background. He's also been a very strong friends of the disability community around the world. So welcome, Don. Thank you, Judy. And it is an honor to have this opportunity. And particularly to be sitting next to Judy, who in many ways has been the eyes, the ears, and the conscience of our government vis-a-vis issues related to disability rights around the world. I have had a long career in American diplomacy and development. I'm celebrating my 40th anniversary. I've worked in more than 100 countries around the world. And it was a great pleasure to be able to come and speak on the issue of why inclusion matters. Because I have found that the systematic exclusion of marginalized people in development and diplomacy and peace building and other key economic and social issues has been the single biggest barrier to our success in these areas. Inclusion matters because it's the right thing to do. Because people like Judy and people who are part of other groups that have been discriminated against and marginalized are essential to achieving the results that we're trying to do around the world. It is a question of international law as well. And as Judy pointed out, we have signed most countries have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Disability matters because we all know people who have disabilities or we are part of that community ourselves. And it's not just people with disabilities, it's women, it's the LGBT community. It is other marginalized populations like indigenous peoples, racial and religious minorities. And if you think about it, the groups I just mentioned represent about 70% of society. And so it's not a question of marginalized populations, it's a question of the entire population. But equally important, we cannot achieve the objectives that we've set either in the sustainable development goals or other areas unless we're drawing on the contributions involving marginalized populations as planners, as implementers and as beneficiaries of programs that we're doing. We have an expression that we use at world learning which comes from the disability community. And it is nothing about them without them. The notion that we need to draw on the ground truth and the skills and the experience of people who are affected by the programs that we're trying to do. It's not just a question though of why inclusion matters. It's also a question of how do you do inclusion? Because the other point that I've learned over 40 years is that you have to be purposeful and directed in all of your efforts in this case. It's not enough to have good intentions. And so very quickly I wanted to walk through a framework that's important for any institution that's going to take inclusion seriously. And there are four elements. Very quickly, the first element is doing programs to assist and empower the disability community. In the case of world learning right now we are working with disability rights advocates in Mongolia and Myanmar and Lebanon to help them influence their own government in the right ways. We're working in Algeria with war victims and other people with disabilities on vocational training, get them into NPO's and government and the private sector. We're working through a program called the Special Program to address the needs of survivors around the world. And this is a USAID program to assist I suspect many of the groups that are in this room. Equally important, however, is to include the principles of inclusion in everything we do. For example, as we try to achieve the goal of eliminating extreme poverty within the next 20 years, we have to recognize that one out of every three people in the world who is under the poverty line has a disability. You know, Willie Sutton, the bank robber in the United States was asked why he robbed banks. And he said, because that's where the money is. In that same principle, we need to support people with disabilities because that's where the poverty is in many cases. Similarly in the education area, if you think about the exclusion of individuals, one out of every three people who is not in school around the world has a disability. We need to incorporate, we need to integrate, we need to get rid of silos in the space. Third, we need to be thought leaders and public advocates. As Judy has suggested, this is an area where in the past people were too silent. The lack of research in this area is stunning in comparison to other areas of inclusion. The evidence that we use is generally anecdotal and we have to be able to be thought leaders to have the capacity to convince others that these issues matter. And finally, we have to walk the talk within our own organizations. It's not enough to have nice language about inclusion. We have to look at all of our employment practices to make sure that we're providing appropriate accommodation and not just reasonable accommodation, but in many cases, unreasonable accommodation. We have to be providing opportunities for training for all of our staffs to make sure that they understand these issues. We have to ensure that everything we do involves people with disabilities. We have to be saying to our funders, you need to focus on these issues, we need to incorporate this in everything we do. So I was told I could speak for about five minutes. I know I've gone way over, but as you can see, I'm very passionate about supporting the work of disabilities around the world. And I look forward to our conversation following, I guess, a couple of comments from the ambassador. Thank you very much. Thanks, Judy. I'm gonna be very quick. Let me just first thank both of you for hosting this event today and for including Nairobi and for your excellent, I think, and very helpful remarks of Judy Don. Thank you both very much. Let me just say a very, very warm welcome to all of the Kenyan guests here in our audience in Nairobi. It's wonderful to have you all here today. I just wanna emphasize how important it is to this mission, to this embassy, and to me personally, that we are sure that we're doing everything we can to assist the community of persons with disabilities. That we are working with you, that we're looking for ways to include you, that we're advocating actively for inclusion, more broadly in society, and that we're looking for ways to improve access. Every country all over the world faces challenges with disability rights. My own country, the United States faces challenges. And Kenya does too. And I've seen some of those challenges firsthand around the country. So it is critically, critically important that we work together, that we partner to try to overcome these barriers, that we find ways to, frankly, bring everybody together on this issue and make certain that everything possible is being done for your access. Whether it's on education, elections, or rights, generally, it is very much my personal commitment to you, that we will be working with you seeking to improve the situation, generally in Kenya and, frankly, everywhere else as well. So again, thank you, Judy. Thank you, Don. And again, thank you to all of the members of the Kenyan community who are here today. It's wonderful to have you here for this stay. Thank you very much. Back to you. Thank you, Ambassador. Now, Paul, I would like to introduce you to Paul Hinshaw, who's in our embassy in Liberia. Could you make a couple of opening remarks? Sure, thank you, Judy. Sorry, we don't have a fancy microphone here. I just wanted to echo what both you and Don and the ambassador have been mentioning and that we are committed here also in Monrovia, Liberia, to looking for ways to be inclusive and to include people with disabilities in all that we do. And one of the things that we've done today is to rely upon actually our alumni of the Young African Leaders Initiative, as well as the International Visitors Leadership Program that have gone on exchanges, either specifically targeting those with disabilities or who simply have a disability and participated in the exchange. And we asked for them to identify a couple of people that they are working with here in Monrovia. And when you saw us doing the conversation before this started, we were also asking two of our colleagues here at Embassy Monrovia to talk a little bit about the challenges that they face here at work as well as the accommodations that have been made for them. I wanted to introduce Isaac Jefferson who has been working here at the Embassy for over 30 years. And the person you see signing is Manju who works with him. And he gave a little bit of information for the group about the steps the Embassy has made to really be an inclusive environment and the challenges that that entails. And so we're really looking forward to expanding this program in the years to come. So thank you. Thank you very much. So I'm gonna ask Don a question. And then I'm gonna turn it over to both Monrovia and Nairobi. So maybe you could also be thinking about the question that you would like to be able to ask us or comment that you would like to be making about both progress being made in your countries and issues that you're working on. So Don, I just would like you to elaborate a little bit more. I appreciated very much the four objectives that you put forward. And now in your capacity as the leader of World Learning which does international work, you have a few specific examples that you would like to share with us about what you've been doing with your staff to become a more inclusive NGO. Absolutely. World Learning is an organization that does national exchanges. And I suspect that many of the international training programs that you've been participating in have actually been administered by my organization. And so that's one of the things that we do which is to bring groups of marginalized populations to the United States, not only to learn from our experience but to share your experience because we have learned in the past that what we know in the United States can be enhanced by the experiences that other people bring to us. And so that's one important piece of work that we do. We are also an academic institution and we provide master's degrees and other opportunities for Americans to look at international development issues. And we ensure that disability rights are included in all of our education programs as cross-cutting issues. So again, if you're trying to achieve objectives in education, unless you recognize that one out of every three students who is not in school has a disability, you're not gonna achieve whatever results you are looking for. Same would be true in agriculture. Same would be true on health issues and even electricity generation. And so as we look forward to new sustainable development goals, these are some of the important efforts that we need on a cross-cutting basis. Equally important is to work with your staff to clarify the importance of issues related to disability to the organization and to put this in job descriptions. You are not achieving your results properly. You are not going to be voted. You are not going to get bonuses at the end of the year unless you can show that you've worked on issues related to disabilities. And not only you on those issues, but you have considerable and time-bound achievements. You can say we brought X number of people to include in X programs by this time. Because too frequently, and especially in the area of disabilities and marginalization, we established these goals of we want to be an inclusive organization. What does that mean? Does that mean that in every discussion that you have, you have people with disabilities in the room? Does it mean that you change your employment practices and your hiring practices to make sure that every group of applicants includes people with disability? At world learning, when we started this program a few years ago, we set up a working group on disability. And we thought we'd get, like, it's completely voluntary. We thought we'd get six or eight or 10 people. We got over 100 people who said, my experience says that unless we do disability rights as a everyday function of this organization, we're not going to achieve. And I was very proud this last year that world learning was recognized with an award from the American Organization Interaction as the single NGO that's doing more for disability rights globally than any other. Thank you. So now I'd like to go to Monrovia and would appreciate it if one of you could possibly share some information on work that you've been doing and maybe a challenge or two that you're trying to address. Who would like to start? Alonzo has a question. So can you pass the microphone or you'll talk a little bit about yourself and then I will ask you your question. Good afternoon, everyone. Hello. My name is Alonzo Durian-Dexin. I was 14 there to attend a RV or B program. I set for all. And I also met you during email at the U.S. State Department at the Kennedy Center. Okay. I've been working here in Liberia. I run my own organization called the Foundation for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities. I have been getting series of challenges because the issue of disability in Liberia is not like the United States when I visited America. Everything in America is bounding that person with disability should take part in it. But what I observe in Liberia, I mean, the U.S. government is spending money in Liberia for many projects. But person with disability really do not have impact. I'm not feeling the project and think that the U.S. government is spending money on, like doing the Ebola crisis. I mean, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities said that in a situation of rakes and emergency, person with disability should be highly protected. But doing the Ebola crisis in Liberia, I noticed and other disabled noticed that the life of person with disability was at risk because there was no awareness, no sanitization for person with disability in Liberia. And USAID and other international partner of the American government spending money doing schools, hospitals. These schools and hospitals are not accessible for person with disability. So I don't know what the plan of the U.S. government in ensuring that every fund that will be spent in my country, Liberia, should be bounding that person with disabilities should have impact. You have impact in the life of person with disability because most people that have disability do not go to school in Liberia because schools are not accessible, no sign language interpreters. I mean, we lack of many things in Liberia. So you find our brothers and sisters coming on the street as early as four in the morning to beg on the street for their daily bread. And which of course is not good for us. We need more allocated disabled in Liberia. Thank you very much. So I think you've put forward a couple of very important points and maybe Paul can also participate in this discussion. Let me say specifically around Ebola, we obviously have not had that particular issue in the United States, but we have had disasters, hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy, which were very devastating in different regions in the United States. And with the first Katrina hurricane, which was in the South a few years ago, we also found that the US government was not effectively prepared to be able to address the issues of evacuation, for example, of disabled individuals and the provision of services for disabled people. Our government, and I think this is very important that you not just be critical to me about this problem, but I think it would be very important if you and other organizations could also write a letter to the ambassador and to explain both the problems that you saw with the Ebola outbreak and how disabled people weren't included and to say that you would like to be able to engage in discussions about how to address emergency situations in the future where the US and other governments will be providing foreign assistance. In the US, what we've seen specifically in the area of disaster is we have a number of federal agencies, but one in particular called FEMA, and the president appointed a person in FEMA specifically to address the issues of emergency preparedness for disabled people in the US. And that has meant that people have been hired in all of the federal offices around the United States who are experts in the area of emergency preparedness. And when the next tragedy occurred here in the US, the Sandy hurricane, while things had improved a little bit, there are still issues. So it's an ongoing learning experience, but it is very important for government and donors to, as you rightly have said, integrate disability because the typical ways that we reach out to people in Liberia and other countries are not necessarily the typical ways where you're going to reach disabled people. Yeah, if I could add, I came to my current position from a position as the deputy administrator at the US Agency for International Development. So I was the number two in our aid agency under the Obama administration. We recognized our inability to respond effectively in a number of situations regarding humanitarian assistance for people who had been previously marginalized. And in particular, I wanted to highlight something we did in the gender area. We said that every single project that AID does has to in advance have a gender impact statement. It has to analyze exactly how the project we're going to do or the humanitarian response we're gonna have or the programs that we're doing through our response to situations like Ebola. I have to specifically say, what is the impact of these programs on women? What are our goals? We needed time-bound, measurable results that we were achieving and it has changed things. And so now we do look when we go into a situation of displacement, we do look at whether we're providing reproductive health care for women. We do look at whether we're providing psychosocial support for women who have been abused. We do look at the importance of getting girls into schools even in a displaced setting. We haven't achieved these same results with the question of disabilities. And I would remind you that in most violent situations, conflict, for every person who is killed, there are 100 people who are left disabled. And so unless we're focusing on these issues, we're going to fail in our effort to build peace and national reconciliation at the end of the process. And so for me, the question of a cross-cutting approach towards disability rights in conflict and natural disasters is an issue that we haven't put forefront on our agenda. So let your question be one that results in some positive outcomes. Paul, do you want to make a statement on this? Give some of your feet. I actually think the two of you covered it much better than I could ever do other than say that we're committed to pursuing different types of programs here that will be supported by the U.S. government. And incidentally, can I congratulate Liberia as well as Guinea, as well as Sierra Leone on being Ebola-free? That is a remarkable effort and you deserve such credit for that. I think six months ago, eight months ago, a year ago, we all thought that this was going to be a permanent fixture of the situation and through the great efforts of your health ministry and your NGO community supported by the international community. And I would give great credit to the U.S. government in this space. It's a remarkable achievement. So congratulations. But I really do want to underscore the comments that were made that issues affecting disabled people had not been originally addressed. And so it's an area that we have to work on strengthening. Just like I said, we've been doing in the States. And so I really think it would be very helpful to put some information together about where you saw the gaps because that's what really needs to get fed back to the people at USAID and the State Department because there will always be future issues like this that are coming up again. And Paul, I think, Paul, what we could also do, you could drop us an email but put you in touch with the person from SEMA who has been working on emergency preparedness and disasters. And maybe you could do a DVC with them to talk more specifically about the kinds of work that they've been addressing here in the States. Maybe if we could go, thank you. Could we go to Nairobi, please? And first person that would like to ask a question, make a comment, please go ahead. Sure, we're gonna start with a comment. Please remind our speakers of your name and affiliation. That perfect. Okay. Well, my name is Lancha. I'm sorry, could you put the microphone closer? Can't hear you. It should be on, but put it very close to your mouth. Okay. Thank you very much. My name is Lancha. My name is Lancha and I have a question. I believe the USAID and the US State Department, you do a lot of work in different countries. I was wondering if there is a way you can put like whatever disability projects you do in different countries so that there will be a platform where people can come and get the best practices, probably involved bloggers or journalists. Because I think, well, I don't think there's a need for us to limit the wheel, but I think there's a way we can learn, we can learn from your projects and also to see how they can be localized. So yeah, I'll just be happy if you answer my question. So I wanna make sure that you have availability to the existing information that is out there because on the USAID website, there is a particular area that focuses on disability, disability rights, services for people with disabilities. And it is a remarkable compendium of things that have worked, things that haven't worked so well, things that didn't work at all. The tendency at USAID has been to try to do pilot projects, to identify things that might work, to invest in possibilities, and will have the capacity to look at each of those programs. I would also particularly urge you to look at the programs that are being sponsored under the program I mentioned before, special programs to address the needs of survivors because those provide grants to support delivery services, training, advocacy, and related activity to all vulnerable populations, including displaced children and orphans and war victims and people with disabilities specifically. And so there are sets of programs that have worked under that. And again, they have to be adapted to local context. It's not what we would call in the United States a plug in place system. They have to be informed by your ground truth, your knowledge of culture, your knowledge of what has been tried in the past, your capability to find finances and resources for the programs themselves. Let me please add to that, a number of you participated in the round table discussions that we had when I was recently in Nairobi, and we invited USAID representatives to those meetings. And one of the outcomes of that is that USAID is now in Nairobi looking at how to more effectively integrate disability into its programming. I think it's really important that you try to meet with people on the mission side of USAID as well as the state department to continue to discuss with them progress that's being made, work that yet needs to be done, and the importance of inclusion, moving it from policy to practice. There are many policies that we have out there which say that disability should be a part of the work that's being done by USAID and the state department. And I think we know very well in my office that it's one thing to put something down on paper, it's another thing to make something happen. And one of the ways we make something happen is to help ensure that your organizations also are able to do credible work that you can be looking at working in collaboration with other organizations that are receiving funding from USAID and or from the state department. And that when Dawn was talking earlier about the importance of training, there's formal training. There's also what I would call a little bit more informal training which may be inviting people from the embassy and from the mission out to your organizations to help them meet with people learn about the issues, learn about the commonality of the issues. And this is true in Liberia also and in every country. So I appreciate the question that was being asked, one in sharing information, the other to include disabled people in programs like training of journalists and others. And Lizzie, you may wanna speak because I know that you were involved in a leadership program here. Do you wanna just give a couple of comments about possibly how you were selected for that and some of the outcomes that have happened as a result? Yes, thank you for putting me on this part. So in 2013, I was selected to participate in Mobility International's Wild Institute which stands for Women's Institutes on Leadership and Disability in Eugene, Oregon. And it was essentially a leadership program for women with disabilities around, I mean, in developing countries. And we all had, there was a variety of disabilities that were taken into consideration and there was three weeks of training on how to work with development partners, how to work with potential funders and how to create those relationships. And I have been involved in follow on training with the same organization, a training of trainers program to implement a similar, you know, wild program in Kenya. So my area of focus is employment for women with disabilities. So in next year, 2016, we are implementing a leadership program for young girls, young women with disabilities on employability skills. And my target focus is the private sector. So how does, how do businesses in Kenya adopt disability inclusion and how do we then build the capacity of young women with disabilities to get those jobs within private sector? Thank you. Dan? Yeah. That program that you participated in is actually one of my favorites because it does bring people from all around the world to compare notes and people with disabilities in all sorts of different areas. And I think that's really important because there is a tendency in the disability community for people who have visual problems to focus on their issues and mobility problems and educational problems. And the reality is that it has to come together. And that's one of the great things that occurs in Eugene. And I guess Mobility International plays, Mayusa plays a key role in those programs as do we. But I also wanted to highlight the importance of working in all of these different countries because we have a lot to learn from each other. The State Department, for example, has worked in, with world learning in Mongolia where we're facilitating the support to the government to draft new comprehensive legislation and regulations on disability rights. We've been working in Myanmar, again, with the U.S. government support, bringing together 550 people to develop a new council for persons with disability. And again, this comes across the disability rights area. We were delighted to bring to the United States, again, under a State Department program, people from various groups in Lebanon. And I went out to Lebanon a few months ago and they have used that delegation, bring together all the different areas of disabilities and formed a national council that is working effectively. And so I think to link up not only among disability areas, but to learn from experiences all around the world is gonna be the key to success in this space. Yeah, Ms. Fetora Estere from the Association of Disabled Female International. As my memory can set me right, Koli said that he working on a project in Nigeria for world fitting. And as speaking to you now, I got affected from the war 1990. I was hit from the racket and piece of the racket particle is now between my rape and my spandex. And in Liberia working on the reparation, world fitting, new reparation. And since we've been engaging our government, they are kept silent, we've been on the air, we've been asking other people to come in and seek our help. But since then, nothing are happening. So in this case, how can the United States government help us do what I got affected from the war with new reparations? Some of us need medical treatment. Some of us need to go back to school and some of our parents start doing the process of the war. And now we are having this RDD day. So how can the United States government help us that new reparation in Liberia? Thank you. It really is a question of mobilizing political support to build the capacity of organizations like yours to have real political power and influence what is going on in the government and in parliament and other areas. And women in Liberia have come together on a number of occasions to experience have come together on a number of occasions to express their very strong views. The work that LeMay Guboye did with all the rest of the community to build support for the peace process. The work that you have all done coming together to elect Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and to support her efforts for women's empowerment. This political power can be supported by domestic organizations, by international organizations. And there are a variety of groups again that we support around the world. Again, I would take the situation in Myanmar where we have had the capacity with the State Department support and frankly with the agreement of Anson Tsu Chi and the government to go in and say we need to empower this group to effectively advocate for their rights. And there are programs that exist within the US Embassy and I don't wanna put too much responsibility on our senior officials there. But my hope is that you will turn to your left and say where are the funds to support these efforts here in Liberia? We actually had a very interesting press round table. Can you hear me okay without me holding the microphone? Okay, so we had a very interesting press round table today. It's Ambassador Malik's final two weeks as Ambassador here in Liberia. And we got many questions from the journalists about what the United States is planning to do. But Ambassador Malik turned the question back towards the reporters asking what are Liberians prepared to do? So we are prepared, as the United States were prepared to support you in your efforts to seek reparations as far as how do you organize as a group to make your voices heard and to call attention to the problem? So we do our various organizations, various programs that we support through USAID as well as through the public affairs program. We focus not on solving the problem for you but giving you the tools in which you will be empowered to organize yourselves in order to seek a solution. So that's how I would answer the question. And we're ready to do that. Okay, can we go back to Nairobi please? Absolutely, our next question will be delivered to you through our sign language interpreter. And a quick reminder, please let our presenters know your name again and your affiliation. Good afternoon, my name is Monica Tenai. I'm one of the Yali 2014 fellow. Thank you for this forum. It's about a reasonable accommodation. It's actually a challenge here in Kenya where we have many persons with disabilities organizations that are partnered with other organizations to actually improve the reasonable accommodation but actually here it works differently. So I don't know how you could help us improve on that. This is another question from Ashura Michael, a global partner of Children with Disabilities Council. I'd like to ask a question. That's Kenya and Africa. Some of us have actually ratified the UNC and PD and where we have free primary education. We've signed and ratified the document. But the challenge is the free primary education does not apply to children with disabilities because most special schools are very far from where the children live and recently actually I went to one of the villages in the western part. It was very difficult because disabled children are left at their homes. They don't go to school. How can USA support our government to achieve that so that at least we have some resources set aside to support children with abilities to go to school because the parents cannot afford, this is because of the poverty. And now actually this is actually worsening our situation as persons with disabilities. Thank you. So let me say on a couple of the questions that have been asked. Ultimately what is really needed is legislation in your countries that requires things like reasonable accommodations to be provided and defined in that legislation what a reasonable accommodation is and how the entity government or non-government has responsibility to provide that accommodation. This is true in all countries around the world. The failure to have laws that are quality laws, the failure for those laws to be implemented results in problems that you've been discussing. As I mentioned earlier in my presentation, we have had these exact same problems in the United States and we have only seen these problems begin to change when we came together as disabled people across disability organizations to develop laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act which has clear accountability requirements including the government's obligation to enforce laws. None of these changes come overnight but I think we need to start looking at how to produce systemic changes, meaning changes that are not just in little places in different parts of our countries. So Kenya for example is a country that we have a grant right now with consortia of disability groups who will be out there doing training on leadership and disability and looking at ways to develop effective laws for implementation. On the issue of education specifically, I'd like to say that both USAID but I would like to also please include UNICEF. UNICEF is a very important organization in many countries around the world. UNICEF has a focal point on disability and UNICEF likewise needs to be and is committed to being more engaged in helping to ensure that children are able to go to school even those with disabilities. Again, I completely understand the points that have just been made about families not sending their children to school, schools not being accessible, teachers not being trained, bad attitudes, et cetera. And this is an area that will take numbers of years to continue to improve but you have voices in the rooms that we're talking to today and disabled people around the world will be listening to this discussion that are doing work in this area. You know what many of the problems are pushing stronger with your governments using the resources of groups like UNICEF, USAID and the State Department and DFID and others is really what can help support you moving this forward. Just a quick response on the question of accommodation. You know, I think, I agree with everything Judy said. I also think that we need to change the dialogue a little bit because it can't be a question of do we do reasonable accommodation or do we educate more children or do we feed more kids or respond more effectively? We have to change the mindset to recognize that unless you are taking care of and supporting marginalized populations you're not achieving your results and you're certainly achieving your results only in the short run. We also have to recognize the question of intersectionality and that is to say that many of the people who are faced with disabilities are also discriminated against on the basis of being women. Many of them are discriminated against on the basis of them being displaced. If you're displaced usually that means you're from a minority population or an indigenous population and if we can view people as true, you know, human beings who bring together all the different identities that you have I think you tend to focus less on trade-offs here than you do on assisting your population. Again, I mentioned that 70% of every population consists of women or people with disabilities or the LGBT community or indigenous populations. On the question of education it is a very important question. As I said before, a third of the 60 to 70 million people, kids who are not in school have a disability and children with disabilities are twice as likely not to be in schools as people, children who do not have disabilities. And again, I think in this area it really is a question of cross-cutting the issues of disability rights throughout all of the education programs that we're doing. So final comment, I actually did want to build on the last few comments to say how important it is to know that you are not alone in your efforts. You know, as I said before I've spent most of my career working in small countries in Africa whether it's the Central African Republic or Angola or Mauritius. And I know that there is a tendency to feel isolated, to feel that no one else understands or is supportive of the efforts that you're trying to achieve, the lack of information about what has worked in other environments, the lack of funding and support. And yet we are in an interconnected world where partnerships are key now. And so I would urge you all to talk with USAID in your countries and talk with the embassy. We have a, we've talked in this conversation about UNICEF. We've talked about Handicapped International about Mobility International. There is a US International Council on Disabilities led by David Morrissey which supports efforts around the world. The World Bank with Charlotte McClain and Clappo now going over there is going to be increasingly a leading advocate in the area of disabilities. There are many, many foundations around the world that highlight these. And I know we're speaking not only to Kenya and Liberia but the rest of the international community. And I'm sure she's gonna be very upset that I do this but at World Learning we have an inclusion coordinator named Jennifer Collins Foley. And she would be delighted to serve as a conduit for any individuals who have a need to know what's going on elsewhere and to link up with other communities and to perform partnerships. And let me also offer myself Donald.Steinbergatworldlearning.org And I would be delighted to hear from any or all of you. And my assistant is looking at me saying, are you crazy in terms of making this offer worldwide? But I'd be delighted to be able to provide whatever support I can. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank everyone today in Monrovia and in Nairobi and for all of you who are gonna be listening to this tape which will be shown also on Human Rights Day and of course the next year. Let me please say that the United States government and other governments can be supportive and need to be supportive of your efforts. But at the end of the day, you need to see yourselves as the leader and the drivers in your country because that is really going to be the way that you can get your civil society, the general population and your government to recognize that you're not just individual people with disabilities, but rather you are a growing, emerging group of disability rights leaders that are demanding equality within your countries. Your voices need to be recognized. You need to be a part of the political structure in your countries. You need to be involved in elections that are occurring and will hopefully continue to occur for many, many decades. You need to be running for office. None of these changes happen easily. I don't know how to say this enough, but while we've made many changes in the United States, there are many, many areas that we continue to work on. The changes that have been made have only been made because we finally made a decision as disabled people to come together, not to look at issues of charity, but to look at this as an issue of rights. And countries around the world are fighting for their rights, not just disabled individuals, but non-disabled people also. Working with the various communities that are fighting to improve our democracies, the disability community needs to be an organized part of that. Today, as this is the UN Day for Persons with Disabilities, is another important landmark as we continue to raise our voices. But please see yourselves as your leaders, the leaders of your country, working with the thousands and millions of disabled people in countries around the world. We say that there are one billion people with disabilities. We need to get many more of the voices of disabled people and families and friends meaningfully involved. We need to hold our government accountable, as I've been saying. We need good laws. Those laws need to be enforced. We need to address issues of corruption that frequently result in laws not being appropriately enforced. We need to be meaningful parts of change in our countries. Leaders in the disability community and recognized human rights leaders in our countries. So I'd like to say that world learning is one of many different entities that receive money from the United States government. The embassies that you're in can also provide you with information and potentially opportunities to meet with some of these organizations to share the work that you're doing so they can also learn more about the work that you are doing. And I'd like to thank you all very much for taking the opportunity to talk today and for others to listen. And we look forward to providing opportunities both for us to continue to learn and to continue to share information. And by next year, when we have the next International Day of Persons with Disabilities, where you will all be able to show some of the measured progress that is being made. Most importantly, more voices of disabled individuals and their family members who are speaking out to fight for change and who can articulate more clearly changes that are being made within your countries. So thank you very much. Have a good day.