| USICD Releases Consolidations of Disability Citations in the 2015 State Department Human Rights Reports | |
Each year, the U.S. Department of State releases an extensive compilation of human rights reports covering the previous calendar year for 194 different countries around the world. The full set of human rights reports for a single year can easily fill thousands of pages. For people who want to see only the disability-related citations woven throughout these reports, it can take a long time to wade through these thousands of pages to find them.
USICD's team has done the work for you! Each year, USICD staff and interns seek out references to disability issues throughout the State Department human rights reports and consolidate them into a single file for each major geographical region. These regional reports are also consolidated into a single, much larger file. Each file can be downloaded in accessible PDF format. The disability consolidations covering the year 2015 have just been completed and are now available via USICD's website. You also can find disability consolidations going back to the year 2010:
USICD's team is now working on consolidating disability citations that were in the US State Department reports covering the year 2016, which were recently released. We will announce in our newsletter when the 2016 consolidations become available sometime later this year. |
| DRI Releases Report on Survivors of Fire at Guatemala Institution |
Recently, Disability Rights International (DRI) released a new report After the Fire: Survivors of Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción at risk On March 7, an institution for more than 700 children, Hogar Seguro, burned down. More than three dozen girls died.
The report details what happened to the survivors of the fire at the institution and the grave danger that they are still in as they are moved to other institutions in Guatemala. DRI calls on the Guatemala government to return the survivors to their families and allow them to live in the community.
Eric Rosenthal, Founder and Executive Director of DRI, was on the investigative team that wrote the report. Eric Rosenthal is on USICD's board of directors.
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| Zero Project Report 2017 Released | |
The Zero Project has published its current research on employment and vocational education & training: 56 Innovative Practices and 11 Innovative Policies have been given awards as Innovative Practices and Innovative Policies of the Zero Project 2017. In addition, Zero Project Social Indicators measure the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) in 120 countries, with a focus on employment (as defined in Article 27).
The Zero Project has started its second four-year research cycle and revisits employment - first covered in 2013. 260 practices and 48 policies were nominated by the Zero Project network of 3,000 experts, both with and without disabilities. Network members were also involved in evaluating, shortlisting, and voting for the most outstanding models using the criteria of innovation, impact and scalability. All Innovative Practices and Innovative Policies are now fully searchable, as is the project's full database, using the new search algorithm on the Zero Project website: https://zeroproject.org.
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| Disability -- World Policy Analysis Center |
The World Policy Analysis Center at the University of California, Los Angeles has recently released public electronic maps of global laws and indicators reflecting the policy situation of people with disabilities around the world. Their new resources review the progress toward commitments under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in countries' constitutional and legal provisions. The package of data, fact sheets, and policy maps are meant to celebrate global progress, spur further action, and reach new audiences.
The fact sheets focus on Work and Disability, Family Health and Disability, Education and Disability, and Constitutional Protections of Civil and Political Rights.
The mission of the World Policy Analysis Center is to improve the quantity and quality of comparative global data available to policymakers, citizens, civil society, and researchers around the world.
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| M-Enabling Summit - Promoting Accessible Technologies and Environments |
M-Enabling Summit Global Conference and Showcase will be held on June 13-14, 2017 at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel, in Washington, D.C, with the IAAP, the internatio
nal Association of Accessibility Professionals Pre-Conference Session on June 12, 2017. With its theme of "Making Connected Things and Services Accessible for All", the 2017 M-Enabling Summit will provide a platform for empowering technologies and focus on next-generation innovations and breakthroughs for users of all abilities.
Ajit Pai, the newly appointed Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, will be delivering a keynote address at the 2017 M-Enabling Summit.
For more information on registering to attend the M-Enabling Summit, please visit http://www.m-enabling.com
To view the agenda click here: http://www.menabling.com/agenda.html
*Register before April 28th for our early bird discount!
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| USICD Joins Endorsement of Global Call to Action for Disability Inclusion | |
USICD has joined various other international organizations in endorsing a global call for all agencies planning and implementing international development and humanitarian projects to be more inclusive of people with disabilities in everything they do.
The coalition of organizations behind the call to action  acknowledge there has been significant progress, in part due to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the inclusion of people with disabilities in some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But they also note that people with disabilities are still being excluded from many significant initiatives meant to reduce poverty levels, improve education access for all children, or provide humanitarian relief around the world.
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| New USICD Fellow from South Korea Shares First Impressions of the U.S. |
 Semin Seo has recently joined USICD as a fulltime fellow from South Korea who is here in the U.S. via the German American Chamber of Commerce in California. She will assist USICD staff on a range of projects from March through September. She is a graduate student at the University of Public Policy in Yeungnam, South Korea, working toward a Master's degree in International Development cooperation, with concentrations in international aid and welfare system policy and in project management.
This is Semin Seo's first trip to the United States. She has written a brief blog post sharing her first impressions of the country:
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