2008-08-13

The Asia-Pacific Development Center on Disability (APCD)

The "Asia-Pacific Development Center on Disability" (APCD) Project is a technical cooperation project between the Government of Japan and the Government of Thailand, which is started in Bangkok on 1 August 2002.
The Overall goal of the project is to promote the empowerment of people with disabilities and a barrier-free society in developing countries in the Asia and Pacific Region.

• APCD will facilitate a regional network and collaboration among disability-related government and non government organizations (NGOs) by establishing focal points and associate organizations for strong collaboration and relationships in each country in the Region.

APCD is also developing network and collabaration to cooperate in relevant information sharing, recruit participants for APCD's training courses and then follow-up after training. NGOs for and of people with disabilities keen to cooperate can apply to be APCD's associate organizations.

• Training implementation:
APCD's training program is designed to directly empower young grass-root leaders with disabilities as well as sensitize non-disabled professionals and official concerning accessibility for citizens with disabilities in mainstream society.

APCD embraces community and rights-based approaches to empower people with disabilities along with promoting accessibilitily to information and communication technologies (ICT) and the physical environment through the following trainings;

• Capacity Building of Self-help Organizations of People with Disabilities (SHO)
• Community-based Rehabilitation (CBR)
• Independent Living (IL)
• Information and Communication Technology (ICT)/ assistive technologies for people with disabilities
• Non-handicapping/ barrier-free environment
• Human Rights Advocacy

APCD's training courses are practical and motivating since most trainers are well-experienced practitioners from developing countries, many of whom have disabilities themselves. The trainees will be required to be from a focal point and associate organizations to further develop collaboration of regional activities with APCD.

This post was originally posted by RollingRains @ Rolling Rains Report:.
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