Inaugurating the workshop, H.E. Mr. Anusorn Wongwan, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Welfare of the Royal Thai Government stated that to ensure people with disabilities have full participation with equality, we must remove major barriers they face. This includes not only attitudinal barriers but also physical barriers in the built environment.
"Therefore, this workshop is considered to be the most important step to promote awareness of the rights of people with disabilities to equal opportunities and full participation and provide guidelines, concepts and understanding on the issues. This will be a valuable contribution to the significant change for the development of disabled persons in the new millenium," said the Thai Deputy Minister. The present training course is unique in this field because it is the first time that three different agencies, JICA, the Royal Thai Government and ESCAP have come together to address an urgent training issue in the ESCAP region, said Ms. Kayoko Mizuta, Deputy Executive Secretary of ESCAP in her opening statement to the workshop."This multi-party endeavour represents an example of multisectoral collaboration at the regional level in support of the goal of the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, which is the full participation and equality of people with disabilities," said Ms. Mizuta.
Access features enhance safety, convenience and comfort for all citizens. An accessible environment is the hall mark of a caring society, said Ms. Mizuta. "By the same token, not taking action to remove those physical barriers amounts to condoning discrimination against people with disabilities."
ESCAP's efforts to develop a regional momentum to promote barrier-free environments date back since 1993, the first year of the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons. "Since then, with the generous support of the Government of Japan, ESCAP has pioneered the mobilization of agencies and personnel concerned with the built environment to work with colleagues in the social development sector, including people with disabilities, on access improvement in ESCAP developing countries," Ms. Mizuta informed the workshop.
The participants of the workshop also heard statement from Mr.Kenji Iwaguchi, Resident Representative of JICA , Thailand Office who reconfirmed JICA's continued support through this kind of training course as its top priority.
This course aims to support the development of active multi-disciplinary groups to raise awareness for building a critical mass of commitment and expertise on access improvement in the Asian and Pacific societies.
The course is designed to form building blocks for a vibrant access initiative network of technical professionals, disabled persons and other concerned personnel from both the governmental and non-governmental organizations. Participants at the workshop are from over ten countries in the Asian and Pacific region and includes people with disabilities.