Women's Studies: REFIA ARI - Woman of the Year
Pioneer of Special Needs Education for disabled children in KKTC Cyprus
Refia Ari received the Woman of the Year award in 2003 of the Women's Studies & Education Centre, Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), KKTC/TRNC-Cyprus. She enabled special needs education for disabled children, children's disability support for their parents and disabilities careres.
"Mrs. Refia (Ari) has created for .. children a world that becomes more beautiful every day"
(Süleyman Ergüçlü, News Director, Bayrak Radio-Television -rtd ~Yaşamın İçinden BRTK, Cyprus-KKTC)
This woman's nation also has its share of disabled children. But Cyprus-KKTC had no facilities for children with disabilities. Neither for their care, nor for their well being and education. Nor for the welfare and educational support needs of their parents. Special needs education did not exist for children with disabilities. Parents of disabled children had no education on how to cope. Children with mental or physical handicaps simply existed and suffered.
Refia Ari changed that for the disabled of Cyprus-KKTC. Her Successful Woman of the Year Award by the Eastern Mediterranean University's Women's Studies and Education Centre was for her pioneering works which made that change possible. Especially for children with disabilities and the parents of handicapped children.
While Cyprus is in, both, the British Commonwealth and the European Union, and, indeed, also in the European Convention on Human Rights, concerns were, as of the United Nations, mostly with its inter-communal conflict, and neither local nor foreign aid existed for the disabled men and women and children of Cyprus-KKTC -not even an official disability re...
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...ial education provisions catering also for the special needs of disabled children up the age of 18, and she was included in its committee for the re-organisation of the educational system which should also ease the integration into society of disabled children by their education in ordinary schools.
Refia Ari, with her exceptional leadership qualities and extraordinary organising skills having worked wonders for the handicapped children of Cyprus-KKTC, is reported in the media to be pursuing her vision to get official help, support and education extended also to disabled adults.
Her voluntary works with various disability organisations and vision for the disabled, as she stated to the BRTK, is based on Refia Ari's philosophy that -translated "We have advantages in life and disadvantages, some of us can't run -but if one's hand is held one can at least walk."
middle of paper ... ... Their disabilities have made them stronger, more determined people. Mariatu Kamara and Ishmael Beah’s stories show that no matter how hard life can get, no matter how hard or how many times life knocks one down, he or she can always pick him or herself up and turn their life around for the better. Works Cited Beah, Ishmael.
Lavoie’s workshop provokes an emotional response. After viewing life through the eyes of a child with special needs, I cannot help but have a more significant understanding of what people, especially children with disabilities, must deal with every day, everywhere. During the many years that I have worked with children with various disabilities, I have encountered each of the topics discussed in Lavoie’s workshop and agree with the points he makes regarding children with disabilities. Particularly impacting the way I interact with my students are the topics concerning: anxiety, reading comprehension, and fairness.
This means that children with all different types of a disability are accessible to public education and learning through professional educators and through their peers. Another important legislation that has been established in 1975 is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that includes all ages of children and their rights to learn. Both of these movements helped shape what special education is today and assisted in bringing inclusion into the classroom. They both made it possible for students with disabilities to be integrated into general education classrooms, while getting the assistance they need as well. These acts are what made it possible into what my field of study is and I intend to push the boundaries of getting my future students in these general education classrooms and making them feel apart of something
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is probably the most comprehensible formulation of disabled individuals’ rights. The ADA officially became a law July 26, 1990 signed by President Bush. To understand the impact of the ADA, one must understand that almost every individual or family is touched by an experience of disability at one time or another. The necessities for state and local government, transportation, employment, and telecommunications can latently benefit everyone. An important point to understand is unlike people who have experienced discrimination based...
Disability is a ‘complex issue’ (Alperstein, M., Atkins, S., Bately, K., Coetzee, D., Duncan, M., Ferguson, G., Geiger, M. Hewett, G., et al.., 2009: 239) which affects a large percentage of the world’s population. Due to it being complex, one can say that disability depends on one’s perspective (Alperstein et al., 2009: 239). In this essay, I will draw on Dylan Alcott’s disability and use his story to further explain the four models of disability being The Traditional Model, The Medical Model, The Social Model and The Integrated Model of Disability. Through this, I will reflect on my thoughts and feelings in response to Dylan’s story as well as to draw on this task and my new found knowledge of disability in aiding me to become
Risa’s goals have taken a drastic turn now that she is wheelchair bound and paralyzed. She also shares the ideology of saving as many unwinds as possible, but also sharing the joy of her piano music along the way.
What comes into one’s mind when they are asked to consider physical disabilities? Pity and embarrassment, or hope and encouragement? Perhaps a mix between the two contrasting emotions? The average, able-bodied person must have a different perspective than a handicapped person, on the quality of life of a physically disabled person. Nancy Mairs, Andre Dubus, and Harriet McBryde Johnson are three authors who shared their experiences as physically handicapped adults. Although the three authors wrote different pieces, all three essays demonstrate the frustrations, struggles, contemplations, and triumphs from a disabled person’s point of view and are aimed at a reader with no physical disability.
She begins to build a strong effective argument by using her own personal stories which include a strong emotional appeal,and she also uses statistics from other college campuses to explore the injustice and unfairness towards disabled students. Throughout the article, Adams effectively gives a strong argument by using her personal stories and statistics to demonstrate the unfairness of how disabled students and also examines how they should be treated. Instead of just tolerating disabled students, we should welcome them as people and not undermine their values as human beings and give them proper treatment and give them the justice and intellectual freedom they deserve. The acts of injustice and unfairness towards these disabled students done so by professors and campus is utterly disgraceful and Adams effectively informs other college campus,govts,us or anyone other readers and persu be something done to help these students especially since they are dealing with enough problems in college,but this is something can control and improve as a society.
...r tended to her activities of daily living – feeding her, grooming her. However, her mother had no insight on her condition and how to help her take care of herself. I, personally took her to school and talked to teachers who advised to have her join a school for the disabled, she was falling behind in classes and it was affecting her mentally and emotionally. She was visually impaired and no one in the family knew until she took a vision test catered to her. She is now 22 years old, and it amazes me to see how she has flourished. A young girl who used to be glued to the television, watching cartoons and the likes, she is now on her iPad watching videos on YouTube, face-timing with friends and family. When our grandmother passed away a few years ago, she took it upon herself to console everyone. Had her growth been hindered, she wouldn’t be the person she is now.
‘“Now it’s my turn to make it better for generations that come after, which is why I’ve become, involved in disabilities issues”’ (Open University, 2016a).
Prior to 1975, educational options for a child living with a mental or physical disability were limited. The family of the handicapped child was most likely forced down an path that lead to the institutionalization of the child and distancing the child from the benefits of receiving a free and public education. It was after federal legislation passed the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (42 U.S.C. § 1983) that monumental changes began to develop that allowed a better understanding of the needs and capabilities of people with various handicapping conditions. Soon after this legislation, Public Law 94-142, also known as the Education for all Handicapped Children’s Act of 1975 (EHA) would further increase the public awareness by providing a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for children suffering from disabilities. Following the EHA legislation reformations concerning the education of disabled individuals would soon become numerous and legislative acts were passed enabling accommodations for disabled individuals in the fields of vocations and technology. In 1990, President Gerald Ford signed legislation replacing P.L. 94-142 with the Individual with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 (IDEA, 20 USC 1400). By definition, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation (US Department of Education, 2011).
Yousafzai is a young education activist who has been striving for equal education rights for women and girls in Pakistan (Malala Yousafzai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2014). Yousafzai came to the world attention as a blogger for BBC and by surviving an assassination attempt by a Taliban member in October 2012(Malala Yousafzai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2014). Yousafzai struggles for equality are the type of struggles that come to minds of many when they think of the modern struggle for educational equality. She is a subject of an oppressive foreign government risking her life for what she believes in. Therefore, many feel that the struggle for educational equality is taking place in the far flung corners of the earth. When others think of the deistic struggle for equal education, they may think back to the 1950’s, 1960’s, or 1970’s. These decades are well known as the height of the American Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Liberation movement. While great strides were made in these decades, many would agree that the struggle for educational equality continue to this day. This statement is partially true when applied to the struggles of students with disabilities.
Under the 1944 Education Act children with special educational needs were defined in medical terms and categorised according to their disabilities. Many of those children were considered as ‘uneducable’ and were labelled as ‘maladjusted’ or ‘educationally sub-normal’, and they were given ‘special educational treatment’ in special schools or institutions. In these special schools (institutions) the rights of the children were not considered, as children were socially alienated from family and the society from where they lived. Though the grouping of children with similar disabilities looked positive in the past, such children were deprived their right to association with their peer...
The World Health Organisation, WHO, (1980) defines disability in the medical model as a physical or mental impairment that restricts participation in an activity that a ‘normal’ human being would partake, due to a lack of ability to perform the task . Michigan Disability Rights Coalition (n.d.) states that the medical model emphasizes that there is a problem regarding the abilities of the individual. They argue that the condition of the disabled persons is solely ‘medical’ and as a result the focus is to cure and provide treatment to disabled people (Michigan Disability Rights Coalition, 2014). In the medical model, issues of disability are dealt with according to defined government structures and policies and are seen as a separate issue from ordinary communal concerns (Emmet, 2005: 69). According to Enabling Teachers and Trainers to Improve the Accessibility of Adult Education (2008) people with disabilities largely disa...
This act established old age benefits and funding for assistance to blind individuals and disabled children and the extension of existing vocational rehabilitation programmes. In present day society, since the passage of the ADA (American with Disabilities Act of 1990) endless efforts of the disability rights movement have continued on the focus of the rigorous enforcement of the ADA, as well as accessibility for people with disabilities in employment, technology, education, housing, transportation, healthcare, and independent living for the people who are born with a disability and for the people who develop it at some point in their lives. Although rights of the disabled have significantly gotten better globally throughout the years, many of the people who have disabilities and are living in extremely undeveloped countries or supreme poverty do not have access nor rights to any benefits. For example, people who are in wheelchairs as a transportation device have extremely limited access to common places such as grocery stores, schools, employment offices,