Seminar to discuss problems of disabled

Press, 8 March 1978, Page 11

Seminar to discuss problems of disabled

Disabled people in Christ- i church will hold the first of;: six seminars on Saturday to'l define problems faced in New I Zealand. The seminar, sponsored by I the Christchurch Co-ordinat-. ing Council for the Handi-’ capped, will deal with pub-, licity and access to inform-: ation as it affects the dis-j abled. It results from a meeting! in October last year when disabled people selected 141 priorities which they wished* to discuss with a view to having more notice taken ofi> the needs of the disabled in! community and national plan-, ing. Saturday’s seminar will be| held in the Multiple Sclerosis l Society's hall in St Asaph | Street. Pupils from nearby! Hagley High School will give] their time on Saturday morn-] ing to help run the seminar.; A spokesman for the org-l • nising committee said)

that the aim of this ’seminar, and five others to be held this year, was to ensure that the disabled did not 1 become isolated from the 1 community. “However, decisions are i still being made which dir-1 iectly affect disabled people without anyone ever having • taken the time to consult the ; disabled. Our seminars, we I hope, will put a stop to this procedure, but we must deIfine the problems and take faction on them,’’ the spokesman said.