{"id":336287,"date":"2010-02-18T15:16:49","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T20:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.rj.org,2010:\/rac\/\/2.2468"},"modified":"2010-02-18T16:12:20","modified_gmt":"2010-02-18T21:12:20","slug":"disabled-in-haiti-where-everyone-is-now-vulnerable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/336287","title":{"rendered":"Disabled in Haiti, Where Everyone is Now Vulnerable"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JDAM<\/span>February
\nis Jewish Disability Awareness Month, and all month, we’ll be featuring blog posts
\nabout disability inclusion. Read our posts <\/a>here and visit our Jewish Disability Awareness Month page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/font>Estimates
\nof the financial damage caused by January’s earthquake in Haiti have
\nclimbed<\/a> with the death toll estimates The New York Times<\/i> cites a report
\nthat “estimates that the cost could be between $7.2 billion to $13.2 billion,
\nbased on a death toll from 200,000 to 250,000; earlier estimates had hovered
\naround $5 billion.” Haitian citizens are slowly
\ncoming to grips<\/a> with the destruction that upended so many lives in such
\nlittle time, but U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>
\nforces are beginning to
\nwind down<\/a> despite increasing need. Amid all of this, the needs of one group
\nof Haitians in particular are in peril: those
\nwith disabilities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stated
\nthat Haitians with disabilities – or those who became disabled in the wake of
\nthe earthquake – must not become “the forgotten ones during the emergency
\nresponse and the reconstruction of the country.” As Dale Buscher points out in his
\nexcellent op-ed<\/a> in the Huffington Post<\/i>, “<\/span>People with disabilities
\nare often overlooked, neglected and forgotten in disaster relief and
\nhumanitarian response. Yet they are among the most vulnerable of the affected,
\nparticularly if they have lost their traditional caregivers-extended families
\nand neighbors.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, in a country in which every<\/i> citizen has become vulnerable,
\nthose with disabilities become even more vulnerable: when hundreds of people
\nclamor for food aid, Buscher notes, the “likelihood of people with disabilities
\ngetting anything is remote.” Likewise, temporary shelters, schools and other
\nservices must be made accessible to those with disabilities. Buscher observes
\nthat though “those living with disabilities were underserved in Haiti prior to
\nthe earthquake and were often shunned and stigmatized,” efforts to rebuild the
\ncountry offer “an opportunity to amend past neglect and discrimination and
\nassist persons with disabilities to live richer, more dignified lives.” My hope
\nis that they harness the potential of the disabled community and realize that,
\njust as everyone is vulnerable to a natural disaster, everyone deserves the
\nopportunity to contribute to society. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February is Jewish Disability Awareness Month, and all month, we’ll be featuring blog posts about disability inclusion. Read our posts here and visit our Jewish Disability Awareness Month page. Estimates of the financial damage caused by January’s earthquake in Haiti have climbed with the death toll estimates The New York Times cites a report that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}