The Presidential Staff Office (KSP) has received public inputs on efforts to promote accessibility and equal opportunity for residents with multiple disabilities, as conveyed by the Indonesian Deafblind Community (Pelita).
KSP Deputy V Jaleswari Pramodhawardhani in a statement received here, Friday, reiterated President Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi’s) commitment to involving members of the disabled community to conceive government policies and draft new regulations.
Pramodhawardhani noted that the government also remains committed to implementing, protecting, fulfilling, and enforcing the rights of the disabled community as mandated by Law No. 8 of 2016 on Disability.
In line with Pramodhawardhani, KSP expert staff Sunarman Sukanto made assurance that his side will support government ministries and institutions to include training on inclusive interaction with residents with deadblindness in the university curriculum and state apparatus training.
“To ensure that the dissemination of inclusivity can be conducted systemically, we will work together and remind policymakers to consider residents with multiple disabilities while conceiving new policies,” Sukanto remarked.
Meanwhile, the chairperson of Pelita, Candra Gunawan, said that deadblindness is often left behind in the discourse of disability rights as well as in the provision of accessible facilities and participation in policymaking.
“Not many residents are aware of the presence of persons with multiple disabilities, particularly deadblindness. It is time that residents with deadblindness have equal rights (at par) with residents with other disabilities and non-disabled residents,” Gunawan stated.
At the meeting with KSP, the organization brought up three strategic issues on the rights of residents with deadblindness, he remarked.
The three strategic issues are the presence and readiness of public facilities to accommodate residents with deadblindness, development of tactile sign language accessible for the deadblind community, and special guidance and training for the deadblind community, Gunawan elaborated.
Source: Antara News