Activities promote ASEAN blind community’s equality, progress, integration

Hanoi (VNA) – A series of activities to promote equality, progress and integration of the blind in ASEAN was launched by the Vietnam Blind Association (VBA)’s Central Committee on December 9.

The activities are held on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (December 3), and in response to the Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities (2023-2032), aiming to promote the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the ASEAN Enabling Master Plan 2025 on the mainstreaming of the rights of persons with disabilities.

Addressing the launching ceremony, VBA Vice President Dinh Viet Anh said that following the initiative of the Thailand Association of the Blind’s initiative, the ASEAN Blind Community Forum has become an annual event since 2013, creating a chance for organisations for and of the blind in the region to meet and discuss issues of shared interest, and seek measures to help blind people to overcome difficulties, promote their capacity and integrate into society.

In the last three years, facing difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, seminars, meetings and club activities have been switched from offline to online format, helping the blind in the region to overcome difficulties together, he noted.

Participants reviewed activities for the blind in the last decade in the Asia-Pacific region, and an ASEAN Enabling Master Plan 2025 on the mainstreaming of the rights of persons with disabilities, the process of joining the Marrakesh Treaty, among others.

Pham Thi Hai Ha, Deputy Director of the Department of Social Assistance under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), said that the department will note down requests by the blind community during the activities and give responses, while focusing on implementing the ASEAN Enabling Master Plan 2025 on the mainstreaming of the rights of persons with disabilities as well as major contents of the Jakarta Declaration on the ensuring of rights of persons with disabilities.

It will also concentrate on this year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities theme of “Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fueling an accessible and equitable world,” said Ha.

According to MOLISA, on December 6, a document on Vietnam’s participation in the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled was handed over to Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Daren Tang for legal copyrighting./.