 Greetings to our friends around the world. Hello, my name is Judy Human, Secretary Kerry's Special Advisor for International Disability Rights. I'd like to welcome you to our Global Interactive Program. I'm speaking to you today from our studios at the State Department in Washington, D.C., and I'm pleased to welcome viewers from around the world to this global interactive conversation. We're excited to have as many as 10 viewing parties worldwide joining us today. They come from Armenia, South Korea, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tunisia, Malaysia, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, just to name a few. Next month, July 26, we will in the United States celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, otherwise known as the ADA. The ADA is a civil and human rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in the United States in all areas of public life, and importantly, promotes accessibility to jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public. It also prohibits discrimination in employment practices and other areas. The ADA was the world's first comprehensive law guaranteeing equal rights to persons, all persons with disabilities. The ADA has had tremendous impact here in the United States. Only through time have we come to realize how influential the ADA has been internationally. Soon after its passage, governments and civil society around the world began writing and enacting their own laws guaranteeing rights and access to their citizens. Years later, it also inspired adoption of the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. But the story of the ADA is much more than a law. The story of the ADA is about people, persons with disabilities, and their families and friends who came together to push for change in the United States. The ADA confirms the vital role that civil society plays in American democracy. It is the story of civic activism, encouraging legislative action that leads to enduring change over time. It has been a long, hard fight for equal rights and equal opportunity. It is a fight that still continues. Joining me today are two friends who have played and continue to play key roles in the great fight for disability rights. King Jordan, distinguished American scholar and activist, and the President Emeritus of Gallaudet University, and Anne Cody, who is a distinguished athlete and advocate, a medal-winning Paralympian, and a State Department colleague with Sports United who conducts sports diplomacy programs around the world. Each of us will briefly share our personal stories about our disabilities and the role ADA has played in our lives. And then we'll show a brief clip from the documentary, The Great Fight for Disability Rights. Today, this will be an interactive discussion. Please start sending us your questions by typing in the chat space. When you tweet about the program, please use the hashtag ADA25Chat. I want to start by talking to King and then Anne about their stories before we move to questions. King, would you like to share a little bit of your story? Thank you very much, Judy. I'm happy to do that. I'm a deaf man, profoundly deaf, and deafness is invisible. When I walk down the street, people don't know that I'm a deaf person. And sometimes that can cause real significant problems. But I became deaf when I was 21. I was in a motorcycle accident. So one day I was hearing person and then the next day I was profoundly deaf. Fortunately for me, I became deaf in Washington, D.C. That's good luck because Gallaudet University is here in Washington, D.C. So shortly after I became deaf, I learned about Gallaudet. I went there, I not only got a good education, but I learned how to become a deaf person. And I learned a little bit about other disabilities. But I have a lot more to learn, that's for sure. Thank you, Ann. Thank you, Judy. I joined the disability community when I was 16 years old and 10 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted. I was in 11th grade and ready to return to my high school after I completed rehabilitation. And the school was not accessible, as I mentioned, it was pre-ADA. And so there was a lot of work that had to be done in a very short amount of time to ensure that I could return to school with my classmates and peers. And some of the things we had to do to make accommodations in those days were things like agreeing that it was okay for me to be carried upstairs by my classmates so that I could go to the chemistry lab, which was on the second floor of the building. The rest of the classes that I took were moved to the first floor. So there were some easy accommodations that could be done as well as some things that took a little more money and a little more time, such as installing an elevator and purchasing a school bus with an accessible lift on it. So those were some of the things that had to happen in my community when I was returning home. I was also a very avid athlete, an active athlete. I went from being an athlete to then being a student with a disability, but I still love sports. That was still a part of my life. So I sought out opportunities to be active and I was really fortunate to have a coach and physical education teacher who exposed me to sports that I could still do as a young woman in a wheelchair. So what year did you acquire your disability? 1979. And, King, when did you become deaf? What year? 1965. Okay. I had polio in 1949, so I'm 67 years old today. And when I had polio, we had no laws in the United States, no ADA, no education law, no other pieces of legislation. And I was the first of three children. My parents were immigrants. And so they didn't know other people who had disabled children and their family. And at that time, when I was about two years old, apparently my parents were encouraged to actually put me in an institution, which they refused to do. So then when I was five years old and I was taken to school, the school in fact denied me admission based on the fact that I couldn't get into the school because it had steps, even though my mother was not even asking for any kind of supports. So I was on home instruction for about three and a half years where I had a teacher who came to my house for two and a half hours a week. This was in the 1950s. Then I finally was able to go to school, but I went to segregated classes only with disabled children, even though the rest of the school was accessible, and sorry, the rest of the school had non-disabled children in it. I eventually decided I wanted to become a teacher, took the appropriate courses to take a teacher, to get a teaching license, but then was discriminated against because I couldn't walk. The official denial of my teaching license was paralysis of both lower extremities, sequelae of poliomilitis. I sued the board of education in New York City, and I did that really with the support of friends who had disabilities, and we were working collaboratively to address this and many other problems. I then taught for three years in the New York City system. One thing I'd like to say is that it was very important for me as I was growing up to have other disabled friends and to be able to work collectively in a cross-disability movement. What we recognized early on was the kinds of discrimination we faced might be different, but the impact of the discrimination was the same. Denial of equal rights, denial of education, denial of access to public transportation, denial of sign language interpretation, denial of captioning, denial of services for people who are blind and low vision, discrimination against people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, discrimination against people with psychosocial disabilities, HIV, AIDS, other invisible disabilities like diabetes and epilepsy. So for us, the development of our movement was critically important and really did result and has resulted in laws like the ADA becoming a reality. What I'd like to do briefly now is to ask a few more questions of colleagues here in the audience and then we'll continue. So, King, I'd like to know as the first deaf president at Gallaudet University where the deaf president now movement really helped move you into that position. It was at the same time as the ADA was being passed by our Congress. What was it like to be the president of Gallaudet University at the same time the ADA was being passed? Thank you for asking me that. The first thing I wanna say is that people often say timing is everything. For DPM visa VA, DA timing was really crucial. It's really crucial. I have to start with a little bit of background about DPM deaf president. Now that was more than a protest. It was really a revolution. It changed the way people see people with disabilities and it really was a big kickstart to public recognition of the abilities of people with disabilities. But I had applied to become president and went through the whole process down to the final three. And I really expected that they would hire me but they didn't hire me. They hired a hearing woman and I learned later that the reason they didn't hire me was because they thought I couldn't work with Congress. They thought I couldn't raise funds. They thought it would be very difficult for a person who needed an interpreter all the time to be out there interacting with people. What they were doing is what's still happening today. They were focusing on my disability instead of focusing on my abilities. That's a theme that runs through disability awareness all the time. I tried to explain using speech therapy which is a little bit interesting for a guy who's deaf but I tell people pay attention to the word disability because it's not this ability, it's this ability. So focus on the ability instead of the disability. When I just became president, Congressman Major Owens called me, asked me to join, become part of the task force on the rights and empowerment of people with disabilities. That's where I first met Justin Dart. That's where I first started to become aware of all of the issues across disability. So timing was just wonderful. The DPM helped move ADA forward and ADA has helped me more than I can possibly say. Thank you so much. Anne, could you share a little bit about your story of the role that sports has played in facilitating advocacy that you've been involved in for many years? Sure, sure, thank you. Well, sport is a great convening mechanism. It's a way to bring people with disabilities together and it was my first opportunity to really learn about my disability and other disabilities and that that community is such an important thing. So sport, besides providing the same benefits as it does for all other people, also brings us together and it also helps bring people with disabilities into the public forum, into the arena, so to speak. So we're visible to the community and what we're doing is displaying our abilities and our talents and skills and that sends a similar message to what King was just sharing about ability and not disability. So I think sport really plays a critical role in moving us forward and really bringing advocates along. Yeah, and I'd like to say that I think the statements that King and Anne have just made are very similar, I'm sure, to issues that you're discussing in your countries. That being how coming together can really produce a strong sense of advocacy and for me, advocacy is being able to speak with each other, not only about what the problems are that we face, but really working on solutions and the ADA and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities really are clear indications of how the power of disability, the power of those of us who have disabilities coming together because we understand solutions. It's getting the attention of legislators and the general public about what our contributions can be. So before we get to any online questions, we'd like to show you a clip from the video, The Great Fight for Disability Rights. The Disability Rights Movement formed in the years following World War II, when an ever-growing group of young people with different disabilities recognized that they weren't being treated the same as everyone else. They desperately wanted to go to school, get jobs and raise families. They had a difficult time doing any of these things, partly because many able-bodied people thought that they couldn't and didn't even want to live full lives. And so this group of young activists decided to do something about it. The able people feel that there is nothing else that we can do at this point, but come to the streets and show the American public why we need their support and how we have a right to be able to work and raise families and get on and off the bus and on and off trains like everybody else. And that's what this is all about. Their story, often overlooked, spans decades. But this video will introduce you to it. It describes a long, hard fight that is still not over. What began after World War II as individuals struggling to survive turned into a collective fight for equal rights by tens of thousands of people with disabilities. Their determination forced the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in history. Very much. Let me just say that it took eight long years to get the Americans with Disabilities Act written and passed. And one important component about what we're discussing today is none of the changes that have happened in the United States have happened quickly or easily. And so as we get into responding to questions from the audience, I think it's very important to see that resilience and complete commitment to removing the barriers that we deal with on a day-to-day basis is something we all have to be engaged in. Here's our first question from Anthony Vanasayan, a blogger in Kuala Lumpur. He says, as a disability activist outside the USA, I'm happy to see ADA now successfully celebrating its 25th anniversary. Whilst I was there, I was happy to receive training under you, Judy, at the World Institute on Disability in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Mobility International USA in Eugene, Oregon. In Malaysia, we don't have any laws like the ADA, although our country came up with a law a few years ago, but with no punitive measures. And disabled persons continue to be patronized in our country. What advice would you give us in working towards an ADA of our own? And what help can you provide in putting some pressure where you are to make sure, in order to make sure, the UN CRPD is fully implemented here in our country? So let me say that we can provide you offline information about technical assistance centers we have here in the United States that provide in-depth information on the Americans with Disabilities Act. I think being able to learn more concretely about what the ADA is and how the ADA is implemented is very, very important. We're also very willing through the embassy to work with you as you're moving forward with your legislature on developing legislation and moving things into practice. I also wanna talk very briefly about the issue of enforcement that Anthony raised. This is a very critical part of not only the Americans with Disabilities Act and not only disability legislation, but in the United States the issue of enforcement is a part of all of our major civil and human rights legislation. And enforcement to us is really something that is critical because we not only say in our legislation and regulations what needs to be done. We also say if this doesn't occur as an individual, as a group, you can file a complaint. The government will investigate complaints that they believe are appropriate for investigation. The government can get involved and does get involved in many ways in bringing litigation or providing mediation or technical assistance. What we've been able to do here in the US and it doesn't have to cost a lot of money is to be able to allow people to understand once a law is developed what the law means, what it doesn't mean, who has obligations under those laws, what those obligations are and gives you information to be a more informed civil society. Anything either of you would like to add to that? I would just say that probably one of the most important things related to ADA and the passage of ADA was the fact that all the different disability groups came together. The cooperation among different disability groups that really have different needs and different priorities allow people to see there's a message here. So if there's a way you can bring together a coalition of people with all kinds of different disabilities, that'll be a big help. To underscore that point, we all recognized, we all face discrimination, different remedies, but our goal is achievement of equality for all. And do you want to say anything? Yeah, I'd like to say that while I was an athlete at the Paralympic level, when I was at home in my daily life, I was still experiencing the same barriers and discrimination that other peers with disabilities were experiencing. And one of the things that I have found is that on a daily basis, we are educators and we're educating people that we work with, people in our community, in our neighborhoods, about disability and rights and what's possible. So I feel like education is something that you do every waking moment as a person with a disability who's committed to human rights. I think the point of educating people is really very critical and you don't need to be in any official position to do that. I think all of us in our personal lives, in the case of Anna and myself when we were children, we're telling our personal stories. We're talking about problems or we're also talking about solutions. We're allowing people in our communities to understand that if we're not able to become vibrant parts of our communities, it adversely affects our society overall. All right, so let's please go to our viewing group in Yerevan for a few questions. Hi Yerevan, how are you doing? So I have two questions and they are. I think it's a useful discussion. Wonderful presentation of the AEDA, signing ceremony. My question is related to again the same issue which is still in progress all over the world, including Armenia. It's the enforcement of laws which are available. Since Armenia ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007, many of us believed that critical changes will take place. But some changes did take place, some developments in the area of employment, accessibility and other important issues, but not due to the convention, not due to CRPD. Moreover, we even failed to adopt a new law which is one of obligations under the CRPD. So what would be your advice? How can we accelerate the process? How can we bring the rights which are on the paper to live, to life? Thank you. Question of view. Is there a coalition of disability organizations in Yerevan that are working on a draft piece of legislation? There are two coalitions or networks. One is the coalition of DPOs and another is Armenian network of independent living and I represent Armenian network of independent living. Both of these coalitions and networks have had a chance to contribute to the writing of the draft law on social inclusion and the protection of the rights of Armenians with disabilities. And we made our proposals and they were heard and some of the proposals were included in the draft law. But now the draft law was even removed from the parliamentary agenda because of some procedures. So we even don't have a draft law as an official document now. So I would suggest that possibly the embassy can show the full version of the film that you saw before to give you some more in-depth information about some of the activities that were a part of the efforts to get the ADA drafted and implemented. Also possibly we can do a video conference where we could speak not just in Yerevan but to other countries about how we in fact were able to develop our legislation. But let me say one point. There was a gentleman named Justin Dart who really was a leader in the United States and we call him the father of the ADA. He passed away a number of years ago unfortunately but he went to every state in the United States and took testimony from disabled individuals to be able to help our Congress and the general public understand the types of discrimination that we were facing as disabled individuals to validate the fact that there was systemic discrimination. And I think looking at ways that you can get testimony from disabled individuals around the country and parents about what adverse effect not having a law and what adverse effect failing to implement a law means to you on a daily basis. What do you have like to jump in? I'm good. Ann? Go ahead. Sorry. Are you wanting to say something else? I just wanted to add that the constitution of Armenia has provisions which are about discrimination, about non-discrimination of persons based on disability, race, nationality, et cetera. But still we lack implementation. And I forgot to explain this myself. My name is Armena Laverdean. I am the leader of Units on India and Parochamber choir. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Ann? Yeah, I just want to say that in addition to educating the public, it's really important for us as we're moving toward passage of legislation or implementation to educate people with disabilities about their rights. That's something that has to happen all the way through the process, actually. You need more people behind you really pushing for the change that you're looking for. But you also need them once the law is passed to help ensure that implementation happens in a very rigorous way. Can I answer that? I think I'm really happy to see the focus on education because people for the most part are not bad. They're not, they don't have evil intentions. They're ignorant. And I don't mean ignorant in a pejorative way. I mean they just don't know. So people who are not deaf have no clue what it's like to be deaf. People who are not blind have no clue what it's like to be blind. So we have a responsibility to help them understand. But as Anne just said, the people in the disability community also need to learn that we do have rights. And what we're so used to is not having access, is not having the rights that should be ours as citizens. And it's very important that people with disabilities know, hey, you need to pursue these things. And be supportive of each other. I've always found that when I come into a situation where I feel like I'm being discriminated against, the ability to call a friend or talk to a friend and talk it through and also in part get some validation that yes, this is something that's real and in many cases not something that I just experienced and therefore there really is a need to look at doing something about it. In my case, I think of some funny stories going into a restaurant in New York City with a bunch of disabled people many years ago and the owner of the restaurant saying that he wouldn't serve us because we had disabilities. We knew we had a right and so we said, call the police if you want to get us out of here. And so just by saying to him, we're not leaving, call the police if you want to get us out of here. They didn't call the police, they gave us menus. And so I think they're very simple things and day-to-day types of experiences that we have that not only bring us the justice that we deserve but also help address this issue of people not understanding and not knowing, but at the end of the day still being successful in this case, eating. Next. Another question from Yerevan. Older Peace Corps volunteer. Sorry, you're breaking up. There's a pain as well as a piece. Sorry, could you start again please? We didn't get the beginning part of the question. I've been older Peace Corps volunteer working in Yerevan. I've been previously spent three years in Ukraine working with people with special needs and also working with the Child Development Foundation for kids with special needs. Very much see it as a dynamic program for inclusion and the dynamic ADA which I was involved with back in the 1970s as an architect to design the first inclusion school in the state of Illinois. And now seeing inclusion schools happening in Armenia 40 years later, it's interesting to see now that the dynamics are going forward but I have a light question actually because in terms of dynamics there's a new logo or access symbol that has been designed 47 years later after the first design and I have a copy of it here that shows a dynamic individual in a wheelchair which the state of New York has adopted now and I know in India they are considering using this symbol and it's new for most people I think but it's been adopted by the state of New York and I'd like to ask especially Miss Cody what she thinks about this symbol because it's been criticized as being maybe too dynamic and too forward in terms of showing a person like a special Olympian and showing them making their own decisions and going forward. Thank you very much for the question and thank you for your work all these many years so important to have allies in professions such as yours. When I saw the image of this more dynamic symbol it reminded me of my wheelchair racing years wheelchair racing was my sport and we often depicted our sport graphically in a similar way to this exact figure so to me it's very comfortable it's familiar and it really I identify with it. Now at the same time I understand that many I have many peers and friends and family members in the disability community with other types of disabilities who don't necessarily identify with it in the same way that I do. So I think what's important is that we have conversations about this and really help each other understand what's important for the greater good of the movement and the effort and what isn't so I think the controversy that it stirred up is very positive because it has all this talking including people without disabilities who have no connection to us. I love it and as someone who's from Brooklyn and New York being the first day to adopt it I think you know we're movers we move forward we're active whether or not we can physically push our wheelchairs like that because I certainly can't but to me it's an onward upward movement piece and it's used significantly around accessibility issues and what I like about it versus the other icon which is kind of stagnant it shows you know we need this because we need to move on with our lives so I really think it's great. As a guy who's not in a chair I love it. I think it's very positive. I think the original symbol is very passive and the new symbol is very active and we are an active group we are an active coalition and I think it's a good thing but I also agree that controversy and disagreement is a good thing. It's a part of life and there will always be and I think it's great I also think it's a very good symbol for children because it allows them to see something that's active. Okay, are there any other questions in your event? So let me say thank you. First of all I want to send my congratulations to the 25th anniversary of ADA and I have two questions. My first question is ADA has been passed in 1990 and revised in 2008 while the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities has been adopted in 2006 so it's very very interesting how ADA copes or meets the obligations and requirements of UNCRPD because of the big time differences of their adoptions. My first though. Yes, I mean I think the ADA as we were saying earlier and a law that came previous to ADA, section 504 really allowed people from around the world to begin to see what the US was doing in the area of developing rights bearing legislation and so when the ADA passed in 1990 there continued to be efforts from around the world which ultimately resulted in the adoption of the CRPD at the UN. I think we're a very dynamic movement around the world. The changes in the ADA in 2008 were very significant but in some way were technical based on some court cases that had been happening in the United States after 1990 so there wasn't really... there were clarifications in our law but the substance of the law stayed the same. Do you have something else? And my second question is the Article 24 of the UNCRPD calls the government's commitment towards transition to inclusive system of education and many, many countries already started that movement and among them Armenia that already has adopted a law that proclaims that by 2025 all mainstream schools in Armenia will be inclusive and special schools will act as support services include. And my question is how it happens that in the United States there are still many, many special schools and that many children still continue to get their education in segregated special environment and what do the disability movement in the United States do to achieve the final closing of the special schools and that every child will have the opportunity to attend the inclusive? So let me say that the number of special schools in the United States, public schools in fact has been decreasing and most children are going to regular public schools now. They still may be educated in separate classes but in the regular school it's giving them more of an opportunity to be able to participate either all day or part of a day in a regular classroom. I think as you all know making the transition from separate education to inclusive education is very difficult and much of the work that's going on here in the United States is focusing on the training of teachers so that they can be adequately trained to be able to work with children who have more significant disabilities in inclusive education settings and the organizing of parents. Our law is driven significantly around the parents' belief regarding the placement of the child and so I think if you can go online and look at data from the U.S. Department of Education which shows you the number of children being educated under our special ed law and the number of children that are spending all day or part of their school day in inclusive classroom settings. It is an issue that we still are working on but the data is moving in the right direction. Anybody? I think it's important to remember that there's education and there's education. There's reading, writing, arithmetic and then there's all of the learning that happens outside the classroom and it's really, really important to know that when a disabled person is in a regular classroom that person is also teaching all of the other children in that classroom about disability and the whole school learns from that and they learn in a positive way. So what we tend to focus on when we talk about education is that reading, writing, arithmetic thing but the social learning that happens in the school is really critical. Thank you, Arivan, for your great questions. Also, I want to say thank you to our viewing groups in Tushan Bay and Hyderabad and Tunis for joining us today. It's wonderful to have you all with us. Let's get back to some online questions. John Sun, who is watching in Taiwan, asks, how can the U.S. help Taiwan's NGOs connect with international disability rights organizations, especially those affiliated with the United Nations? I would suggest that there are a number of groups that you may want to reach out to. The International Disability Alliance, you can get their information online. They represent 12 international and regional organizations such as the World Blind Union, the World Federation of the Deaf, Inclusion International, et cetera. And these groups are doing a lot of work around implementation of the CRPD. Also, Disabled People's International, Rehabilitation International are groups that you may want to look at. Joshua asks, how does the ADA affect businesses like hotels, restaurants, pubs and cafes? Do businesses in the U.S. lose potential profit from making those changes? What do you think you'd like to start with that? Sure. Sure. Thank you for the question. In the U.S., those of us on this panel travel a lot on business. We use a lot of these businesses like hotels and restaurants and pubs and so forth. And accessibility to them is really important. And I think that one of the things that happens is if there is a public facility such as a restaurant that doesn't have an accessible restroom or doesn't have a ramp to get into the building or doesn't have braille menus, then we as private citizens are responsible for ensuring that that restaurant owner understands the law. And we also ask that they pay attention to the law and make the changes necessary so that we can participate because we're tax-paying members of society with disposable incomes who want to eat out in restaurants. You know, it's potentially a very good market for a lot of these companies and organizations. So, and in terms of the accessibility accommodations that are required, in many instances, I think from the statistics and the data that we have, we see that the majority of accommodations cost less than $100, whether it's for an employer to accommodate an employee with a disability or accommodating people in these other public areas. King? I used the word ignorance before, and I think I have a story that demonstrates that ignorance and also not in a negative way. I was in Vermont on vacation and I went to check into the hotel and I asked for a strobe fire alarm and the person at the desk had no idea what I was talking about, a strobe fire alarm. And I said, well, it's a safety issue. I'm deaf. If there's an alarm, I'll sleep through it so I need a strobe light. And he said, we don't have a strobe light. I said, sure, you have to. It's the law. And he said, not in Vermont. It's not the law. So that gave me the opportunity to explain about the ADA to explain about the safety issue, to explain how it would be beneficial for him. So if I die in a fire because he doesn't have a strobe, you know, but he was very accepting and he called a local chain hotel and they brought over an ADA kit that included a strobe alarm. So I think, you know, the points that are being made here are very important. Let me explain that the Americans with Disabilities Act, one way to understand it's like the floor. So the ADA is a law that every state is obligated to comply with. Some states have put additional requirements on. I think the point that King is making here about the strobe light is because there is a regulation in the Americans with Disabilities Act that stipulates what hotels, for example, need to have. And so this learning moment where the gentleman quickly understood that Vermont was not exempted from the national law, then allowed him to use his logical sense to go out and contact another hotel. I think the essence of your question also was, is this a financial problem for businesses? I think what we're clearly seeing in the United States is as businesses are becoming more accessible. Remember that our laws require that any new building which is being built must be accessible. Any major renovations which are going on must be accessible to, at minimum, the U.S. federal standard. This has meant that access to stores, hotels, etc., transportation systems all across the U.S. are changing. It also requires accommodations for people who are deaf or hard of hearing or blind or low vision. If you think about technology, if you think about the computers that we're using, some of the features now in computers are really accommodating for a broad audience. The computer manufacturers, Microsoft, and others are clearly seeing that the accessibility features which were originally designed specifically to benefit disabled people now are benefiting millions and millions of people around the world, many of whom don't have disabilities. If you look at parents who have children and baby carriages and things of this nature, businesses are benefiting, and I think more and more businesses are recognizing that the changes that they're making in the U.S. and around the world are, in fact, helping their bottom line. So, Pakistan, what's the exact figure of disabled people in the United States and worldwide? Is there a known figure of the number of disabled persons in developing countries? How can disabled activists play an important role in society? So, first of all, it would be good to look at the World Report on Disability, which came out in 2011. It was written by the World Health Organization and the World Bank. It says there are at least 15% of the world's population, 1 billion people, 15% of the world's population, and 80% of those individuals living in developing countries. In the United States, we estimate that we have approximately 59 million disabled individuals of all ages with our broad definition of disability. Your question, how can disabled activists play an important role? King, would you like to answer that part of the question first? I would say the most important thing is to make yourself visible. Don't hide. Don't not show your disability. Be out in public. Be interacting with people all of the time. And be upfront about your disability. Always beginning conversations with people by saying, I'm a deaf man, so you have to look at me when you talk to me. And then the conversation changes. People who see that I'm deaf and I'm not ashamed of my deafness. I'm not shy about my deafness. That's me. That's who I am. So disabled people have to be proud of who we are and show others that we're proud of who we are. And I would just add that as activists you're leaders in a movement and it's really important to develop relationships with other leaders and influencers in your community and in your country. So having those relationships with people who can help influence and make change is really important. And remember that you're the expert on these issues. So you're also a source and a resource for those individuals who can shape policy and pass legislation. And let me also say that I know that those of you in the room, in the rooms around the world, you are activists. And you're asking these questions for very good reasons, but the reality is unfortunately we don't have enough time to hear from all of you about the great work that you're already doing. So I just really want to underscore that for me, one of the values of this discussion is to share and learn from each other. I think the issue of shame is a very big problem in many countries, stigma against those people with disabilities. So I also want to underscore what Anne and King have said. It is very important to encourage family members with children who have disabilities, disabled children, young adults and adults to come out into the community. I know our US embassies around the world and USAID missions are really trying to play a proactive role as many other governments around the world are trying to do to remove the shame factor, to allow people to see that disability is not a curse. It's a normal part of life. It happens for very many reasons. King being in an accident was not because his family did something bad. Causing his deafness, Anne's disability, my disability. It had nothing to do with something in a previous life. And we need to really speak to this. I'd also really encourage those of you in countries where the religious community plays an important role to have some discussions with leaders in the religious community who can help give positive messages forward about the need for disabled people to be seen as equal members in society not looking at us as objects of pity and charity. Let's quickly move on to the next question from the IRC in Tunis. Question is what role does civil society play in implementing laws and how does the ADA affect families of disabled persons? Anne, you want to go first? I'll take the latter question. How does the ADA affect families of disabled persons? Having a disabled person and being a disabled person in a family means that there are changes and accommodations that you're making, especially before ADA, thinking of traveling with my family, visiting relatives, and there were lots of challenges. So everybody just knew that I had to be carried into the house of a family member or up the stairs in a hotel that maybe wasn't accessible pre-ADA. But now my family really benefits just as much as I do because we're able to go together and share the experience, whatever it is, together, whether it's going on vacation or visiting a zoo or whatever. So it really is empowering for all of us. And my parents have lived my disability experience with me and my siblings, my brothers, and other members of my family. And so it's wonderful to now be able to reap some of the benefits of having a more accessible society here in the United States and internationally. King, you said before that you were 21 years old when you became deaf overnight. So how do you answer this question based on your experiences in relationship to your family, et cetera? So it's really interesting that access is different for us. For me, access means communication access. And in my family, for years and years, I never even thought about using a telephone. I couldn't use a telephone. But the ADA Title IV requires that the telephone companies make the telephone accessible. And now I use video relays. So if I make a telephone call, I punch in the number on my equipment, and an interpreter shows up. When I talk to you, you listen to me. When you talk to me, I see an interpreter. And I use the phone all the time now. When my children were young, we never watched television together. Television is such a big part of American society, but I couldn't understand television. Now television is captioned. And I can watch TV programs in the same way that other people can watch TV programs. Same with the movies. I go to any theater in DC and see captioned movies. Any showing now. But I think maybe I want to say something about enforcement that you said before because the movie theaters, they drug their feet. They didn't want to caption all of the movies. TV didn't want to caption everything. The industry complained about the cost of captioning. It's small cost. And if you go into a sports bar, all of the TVs have captions on. So communication access changed my life. It changed the lives of all of my family members still. So let's go on next to Sri Lanka. People with disabilities in Sri Lanka do not, as a rule, stand up together or get on a common platform to voice their concerns. In other words, we have no disability movement. How do disabled people in the U.S. get together as a disability rights movement to successfully fight for their rights? So I just want to say my experience in New York in the late 1960s as we were beginning to form our movement in New York, we began to work with people who had some other types of disabilities. When I went to California and I was involved with the First Center for Independent Living, that organization also started out with people with physical disabilities and people who are blind and low vision. We had an organization at that time called the American Association for Citizens with Disabilities. That came about in 1975 and I would say it closed in the 1980s but nonetheless really had a great impact and it was truly a cross disability organization. The first president's one was a blind woman another person was deaf and then someone with a physical disability but you could see that we were beginning to learn in part because when the disability community went one organization at a time to our city hall or our state legislature or to our federal congress and we each discussed what our problems were and each discussed what the solutions were. The elected members didn't want to deal with us. They wanted people to come together because they didn't want to do something for one group that another group would be upset about. So what you can see both in the development of regulations around our law called Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act was abandoning together as King mentioned earlier even though we might not have had the same problems that we were facing. We recognized the real importance of coming together to speak with one voice. We learned from each other about what our needs were individually for deaf community, blind community, people with intellectual disabilities, etc. and those are physical disabilities. I think it has empowered us as a movement in the United States to be able to come together and speak more effectively in unison. Anything else? I think Judy has been involved in this from the start when she talked about New York and Berkeley, California and then you saw on that film clip her comments for 504 that I think 504 was a really turning point in collaboration among different disability groups because the regs that hadn't been enacted would help all people with disabilities. So there were protests in Washington DC and Berkeley, California and San Francisco, California that brought together a whole coalition of people with disabilities and we saw, hey, we're more effective when we work together. So how to make that happen in other countries? You are doing it and I think, again, looking at learning from each other but insisting because the CRPD was developed by a coalition of cross-disability organizations. Be positive, know that change takes a long time but I know that all of you are on the right track. So let's go back to our viewing group and one more question. Go ahead, Yerevan. I'm representing an organization that represents the mothers of children with hearing problems. So I was just wondering if I can ask the gentleman, the president of the university, in your university, do all the classes sign languages used for all classes or there are other options that she will continue in Armenian and then I'll interpret it. In Armenia now, many parents of children with impaired hearing, they are not choosing sign language because number of people in Armenia who can understand, who can communicate in sign language is not much. So for the rest of the people right now, there's a woman who's speaking Armenian. The children here, they have a mixed environment. So they speak but they cannot listen. Their hearing is impaired. When they go to universities, they cannot listen to what the professors are saying, what the other students are saying. So is your university a place where such children can become potential students? I'll try to respond to your question. There are many different parts to your question. Communication is different for deaf people than for people who can hear. Slowly in that we have to see to understand. So there are people who don't know sign language and don't use sign language but if they don't use sign language they have to relapse and it's the same thing. They're using their eyes to communicate instead of using ears to communicate. At Gallaudet University we try to do everything to make communication accessible. Signing happens all the time. All of the professors can sign. All of the students learn to sign. If they show up without knowing how to sign, then they will learn how to sign. But we also have what's called computer assisted real-time captioning. That's where a person's voice is turned into text. And so there's a screen and when the person speaks in front of a class then you can read the text. That's expensive and it's not easy to set that up in places. But at Gallaudet and at other schools and programs for deaf children we recognize that some children learn one way best and some children learn another way best. I personally use sign language all the time. I find it easy to use sign language. When I leave this room and go out on the street I won't have a sign language interpreter. And all of the people I meet will not know sign language. So I'll have to read the lips. Or if worse comes to worse I take out my interpreter and ask them to write so I can understand them. There are different ways to do this and if you have a hearing impaired child then the most important thing to remember is that the person can hear you have to make sure things are visible. I'd also like to say that Gallaudet University is as King explained completely accessible for deaf and hard of hearing individuals but it's important to also understand that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires all universities and community colleges and technical training schools etc to ensure that they can provide services so that a deaf individual can attend that school sign language interpreting and cart or real life captioning is something that is a requirement. There may be issues at some schools where things aren't being done as smoothly as they should but those issues also have been becoming more and more reduced. Maybe just for a second on this issue of sign language versus oralism. I think there are many people that feel it's very important to help children learn sign language and likewise to be able to help families learn sign language. Oralism can be very beneficial and certainly for older individuals who may not be able to learn sign language there are many different ways of addressing it but to the extent that oralism does not allow someone to understand sign language or sign language interpretation based on the point that King is making the ability to see people sign language interpreter in a group can really help ensure that King can be knowing what other people are saying even if they are not facing him. I think this is another issue where further discussion could happen but I think the issue of oralism versus sign language interpretation around the world. Can I tell the one short story a friend who graduated from Gallaudet several years ago was Cameroonian Cameroonian he had a really difficult time getting an education when he grew up in Cameroon and he knew that deaf children today have a difficult time in Cameroon so when he finished his master's degree at Gallaudet he and his wife went to Cameroon and established a school that school started in one room that they run now the school has more than 200 children and the children in the school pass all of the national exams and now they are getting junior and senior and high school they will be going to universities in Cameroon. It's really wonderful before the school was established there was no signing program for deaf children in Cameroon now there is one very very special school there and others are starting to see the benefits of that. Thank you so much we need to get back to our online questions so thank you very much Yerevan now back to a question from a group at the US Embassy in Khartoum are there programs for teaching sign language to teachers in order to help deaf students? King? All of the teacher training programs include sign language training and at Gallaudet for example you have to pass a sign language test before you can graduate with a degree in teaching so yes probably the best way to learn sign language is outside of the classroom it's by interacting with people who are deaf and people who sign so that's why a place like Gallaudet is really good because the education students not only go to class in sign language but go to the cafeteria in sign language in sign language go to the snack bar and the pub in sign language and when the teacher trainees get their certification then they not only know how to teach but they know how to communicate with deaf people and of course in the very beginning the camera was put on King's sign language interpreter for today so you could just speak for 2nd King about sign language interpreters in the United States their training programs and others so that interpreters can work in businesses in all kinds of settings there are many many interpreting programs at community colleges at colleges and universities and it's really beneficial that there are so many new programs part of the reason for so many programs is that the telephone system I was talking about before video relay interpreting that's set up in a way that works 24 hours a day 365 days a week so there's a need for many many sign language interpreters now when I go to the doctor then they arrange for an interpreter when I go to the dentist they arrange for an interpreter when I meet with an attorney he arranges for an interpreter and that can only happen when sufficient interpreters receive training so more and more you see interpreter training programs established yes so that's part of the answer we haven't gotten excuse me into talking at all today about Braille and other forms of accommodations for people who have other forms of disabilities we can do that another day now our final question for today an online viewer writes in South Korea there are some cases where private health companies decline one's application or refuse to pay insurance money because of his or her disability does this kind of case also exist in the United States so this is a complex question in the last couple of years there were changes made to our health care laws that preclude a health care company from denying services to an individual based on what we call a pre-existing condition there are stories that are coming up in the news now about how companies may be charging people more money not denying an overall service but charging more money and this is an issue that our federal health and human services agency is in fact looking into but legally denying people health care because of pre-existing conditions is no longer is no longer legal in the United States so let me say that our time has run out and thank you so much for participating in this program I'd like to sincerely thank King and Anne for their great participation and to thank all of you online and in your event and around the world including those in Duchenne Bay and Hyderabad Hi Hyderabad, I haven't been there for a while and Tunis, hello to you all too thanks for sending in those wonderful pictures and all of those wonderful questions please keep in touch with us you can keep in touch with Anne on twitter at A-E-C-O-D-Y and with me on twitter at INT disability and on facebook at facebook.com S-A-H-E-U-M-A-N-N that's for special advisor human you can keep in touch with king at king.jordan at gallaudet.edu thank you so much for this participation and we hope that you all will be participating in embassy events in the future thank you and have a great day or evening