Today is an international disability day which was established by the
United Nations in 1922 and is observed in Georgia since 1996. As Rati
Ionatamishvili, Public Relations Manager and Board member at Coalition for
Independent Living told MediaNews, official statistics counts 140 000 disabled
population. These are the people who receive pension because of their
disability status. However, the number of disabled people is up to 230 000
according to un-official data.
He added that the rights of disabled people are not properly protected
and that the majority of them are hardly involved in public events.
Corresponding legislation has to be elaborated and programs designed for
disabled population services have to be increased in number and funding.
Professionals working at CIL are quite critical toward the change of the
mechanism that day care centers are being financed by the state. The change
implies introducing voucher funding. Namely, according to the new regulation,
the voucher will be issued to those people who are beyond poverty limit and
those who are not will have to pay 250 GEL per month.
There’s no accessible public transport for people with disabilities.
According to Rati Ionatamishvili, accessible busses were introduced in Tbilisi two years ago but
they were poorly and ??? equipped. Moreover, there are no adapted bus stops in
the city so people with disabilities are still deprived of public
transportation.
Rati Ionatamishvili is hopeful that these problems will soon be solved.
The ground for this hope was suggested last year, when Parliament of Georgia
ratified Concept Paper on Social Integration of People with Disabilities which
obliged the Government of Georgia to develop a 3-year action plan on
disability.
Coalition for Independent Living, Save the Children and members of
legislative and executive bodies were jointly working on the concept paper with
the financial support from USAID. The document aims at protecting the rights of
PWD and integrating them into the society. Amendments based on these principles
of the concept paper will be brought in the current legislation and finalized
in the future.
Radisson SAS Iveria Hotel is hosting International Disability Day
tomorrow which will take place with the active participation of members from
CIL and Ministry of Labor, Healthcare and Social Protection.
