Consumer Empowerment Grows in Developing Countries

Jerry White, founder and director of the Landmine Survivors Network (LSN), addresses the crowd during a rally for the Landmine Ban Treaty. As the world grows smaller through global communications, consumer needs in other countries are surfacing, and the dream of spreading the vision of Consumer Empowerment to persons with disabilities in underdeveloped countries is beginning to crystallize. In developed nations, persons with disabilities working together are making considerable strides toward empowerment! They have more resources and more power over their lives. By comparison, in many developing countries, the disabled are neither respected nor recognized. The word "accessibility" is unknown, education is lacking, information and resources barely exist, technology is not a factor, and the great majority of disabled persons have no access to the meager care and services which do exist. They must take what little they can get and live by norms of a culture that may not be able to support them. Without foreign aid and volunteers, there is little hope for any quality of life. Help for Landmine Survivors Currently there are a number of consumer-driven programs emerging on the international level, including the Landmine Survivors Network (LSN). The LSN advocates for landmine victims and their families worldwide and helps these survivors to recover and resume their roles as contributing members of society. LSN accomplishments include: developing the Victim Assistance Program, a peer support network; distributing pamphlets on "Surviving Limb Loss" in several languages; and publishing the Portfolio of Landmine Victim Assistance Programs. Leaders also organized the First Middle East Conference on Landmine Survival and Rehabilitation and assisted in developing the Treaty to Ban Landmines. Assisting Cambodian Refugees Handicap International, founded in 1982, advocates for Cambodian refugees by helping them "vivre debout" (to live upright). Working in close cooperation with medical and administrative authorities of each country, expatriates provide training courses with a focus on enabling disabled persons to recover autonomy and self-esteem, and integrate themselves back into society. Handicap International provides: emergency medical and psychological assistance, rehabilitation facility development and technology, rural development, community-based programs, social integration, education on landmine prevention, skills training, and human resource development. Handicap International workers unload emergency relief supplies. War to Peace: Benefiting Amputees International joint efforts have been under way for years to redirect scientists away from a focus on weapons technology to peaceful pursuits, such as solving the problems of amputees through improved technology. [Editor's note: For more information, visit these web sites: http://ipp.lanl.gov and http://www.istc.ru ]. The Bone & Joint Decade Numerous professional groups are also leading advocacy efforts. The Bone & Joint Decade (BJD), 2000 to 2010, coordinated by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), began with a 1998 consensus meeting in Sweden. The goals of the program include global partnerships with patient and professional organizations, international research societies, and scientific journals and governments to address the present provisions of musculoskeletal care, the ideal provisions of care, and the costs and priorities for change in the care of patients with musculoskeletal conditions. BJD in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) is collecting data on "the burden of disease" for musculoskeletal conditions and diseases. This global initiative calls on governments around the world to raise these conditions and diseases higher up on the political healthcare agenda to prepare for care of future generations.

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