EFE Helps Sow Seeds for Disability Rights in Japan

Illinois P&A is Model for Partnership

Under a grant from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP), which was established in 1991 to help achieve closer relations between Japan and the United States, the University of Illinois at Chicago hosted and coordinated a program for people with disabilities, family members, advocates, representatives from social service agencies and lawyers from Japan to attend seminars and training sessions on three separate occasions to address a wide range of disability rights issues focusing on community integration, antidiscrimination and the prevention of abuse and neglect.

(l. to r.) Yoshiki Yasuzata, Yukari Hayashi, translator Sachiro Shirota, Higashi Toshihiro, Aiko Akiyama and Zena Naiditch in San Francisco

EFE has been providing technical assistance on advocacy strategies, including background on the role of the U.S. Protection and Advocacy System (P&A) and on the major barriers to the inclusion and full participation of people with disabilities in our society.

Unlike this country, Japan does not have strong antidiscrimination and other statutory rights for people with disabilities. Consequently, there are few legal options for addressing grievances. There is also no P&A System with broad statutory powers. Given the vast differences in Japan's legal and political systems, as well as its social culture, identifying and transferring strategies from one country to another presents a major challenge.

Although there are local People First chapters and about 100 grass-roots centers for independent living throughout Japan, they are not publicly funded as in the United States. Furthermore, there is no system for funding disability rights programs at the national level (P&A) and few private foundations. The nonprofit sector is not well established and supported as in the United States.

Presentation in Kumamoto

The history of this cross-cultural interchange began in May 2001 when EFE President and CEO Zena Naiditch was invited to be one of the presenters to a group of 31 professionals associated with the Japanese disability community under the aegis of the Department of Disability and Human Development (DHD), University of Illinois at Chicago, and organized by DHD Senior Research Specialist Kiyoshi Yamaki, Ph.D. They had assembled to address issues of abuse, neglect and financial exploitation of people with disabilities.

Subsequently, Naiditch has had the extraordinary opportunity to visit Japan twice in 2002 by invitation of the Japanese delegation with support from the CGP. In May, she gave presentations on the accomplishments of the U.S. P&A System and EFE in Tokyo, Yokahama, Osaka and Kumamoto. In October, she participated in a two-day wrap-up session for "Protection and Advocacy Japan," an ad hoc diverse group, which included People First and other people with disabilities and family members; service providers and other professionals; and various advocacy groups, among them representatives from centers for independent living, Inclusion Japan and autism interests.

While in Japan, Naiditch attended Disabled Persons International's four-year assembly in Sapporo, attending sessions on the development of a United Nations Convention on the Human Rights of People with Disabilities. She also participated in two news conferences on the first deinstitutionalization lawsuit filed in the country, attended the filming of a public television show on discrimination against people with disabilities and visited several grass-roots organizations, including a People First office and a neighborhood mental health drop-in center.

Japanese advocates learn about disability rights programs in the U.S.

Naiditch joined Professor Theresia Degener and Mary Lou Breslin on a panel discussion for Legal Advocacy for People with Disabilities. Degener, who is from the Evangelische Fachhochschule (University of Applied Sciences), spoke about her research on antidiscrimination laws throughout the world. Breslin, who is from the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, spoke about events leading up to the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States.

Another trip highlight was a two-hour meeting with The Hon. Nancy Kassebaum Baker, former U.S. Senator and wife of Ambassador Howard Baker, at their residence. Naiditch also joined Baker when she gave the keynote address to nonprofit disability and disease organizations at an organizational development program hosted by Pfizer Japan.

Following these highly fruitful trips to Japan, Naiditch hosted a delegation of four Japanese disability rights activists in San Francisco this past January. They traveled to the United States at their own expense for a four-day strategy session to seek direction and expertise for their burgeoning grass-roots disability rights efforts on behalf of people with disabilities in Japan. =

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