United Nations 2013

International Disability Alliance was founded with objective to facilitate negotiation

of the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.

Today we were signing a memorandum of understanding between two groups,

International Disability Alliance and Internation Disability and Development consortium.

The disability movement is very diverse.

We came together with many difficulties, with many challenges to produce one unified voice.

Respectability USA is a new non profit non partisan organization that is devoted

to helping people with disabilities achieve the American dream.

How do we change the fact that for 23 years since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, that

there has been absolutely no improvement in the outcomes for Americans with disabilities.

70% of Americans with disabilities were unemployed before the ADA and here 23 years later identical numbers.

Its time for radical significant positive change.

Its very important that in our disaster recovery centers

that we provide equal access to all disaster survivors who come in looking for services.

So we've assembled kits - we have 175 of them - to provide tools for accessible communication.

The Organizations of Persons with Disabilities have constructed a universally designed office building.

It is approximately 100,000 square meters and it is totally accessible to all needs of all kinds of disabilities.

If we can show that it is possible to make an office building where 300 people are working,

and we can make this fully accessible

then there will be no reason for not doing that when you build new office buildings in Denmark.

In any country, you will find that you have three or four mobile service providers, one telecom regulator.

You could meet all those people in that room here.

And if all those decision makers get together with persons with disabilities, with appropriate government agencies

you can really make a huge difference very quickly. And from a government standpoint,

developing policies and programs for accessible mobile telephony costs nothing.

And think about the 6.5 billion mobile users around the world and the likelihood that persons with disabilities

would be some of the prime users of the technology. Its a huge impact on millions of people.

We some strong level of interest in progress. Practical progress.

So as you look at the glass, half full or half empty,

we are looking at a half full glass and we just need to increase the level of the water in the glass.