Over five million Lankans have diverse disabilities
by Ananda KANNANGARA
Idiriya Secretary General, Dr. Ajith C.S. Perera said that at least
five million Sri Lankans have diverse disabilities impaired sight and
hearing and immobility.
He was addressing the Annual General Meeting of the National Council
for the Deaf (NCFD) in Colombo on Friday. Prominent personalities in the
field of medicine including Dr. Ananda Soysa, Prof. Priyani Soysa and
Dr. W. Ratnayake were present.
NCFD, Senior Director Mrs. Maud Senaratne presided.
Dr. Perera, a Chartered Chemist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Chemistry, London became disabled after a huge tree fell on his moving
vehicle.
He was also appointed to the test-match panel of Cricket Umpires of
Sri Lanka in November 1992. He now uses a wheel-chair to get about.
He said no person should be discriminated on the grounds of
disability and their immobility.
Differently-abled persons too should have equal rights to access
public places in safety, he said.
Dr. Perera was also instrumental in getting the Sri Lanka Standards
Institute to set up a Sri Lankan standard to enable disabled persons to
move freely when designing building constructions.
Referring to a Supreme Court order, Dr. Perera said that new
buildings especially toilets and wash rooms should be designed and
constructed in a manner to help people who have different levels of
ability to move about freely as defined in the accessibility
regulations.
He said it was also the duty of parents and teachers of deaf children
to improve the quality of life of such people to live in a more enabling
society.
Apart from public buildings and public places, the environment should
be designed in a manner to provide safety and improving quality of life
in promoting the social, physical and mental well-being of
differently-abled persons, including deaf persons.
NCFD Senior Director, Mrs. Senaratne commended the service being
rendered by Dr. Ajith Perera towards the welfare of the
differently-abled community in the country.
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