New Horizons Un-Limited Inc. New Horizons Un-Limited Inc.On August 11, 2009, the disability community lost a great champion of those with intellectual disabilities, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. A longtime advocate for children's health and disability issues, Shriver was a key founder of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and spearheaded the movement towards nationalizing the Special Olympics. To learn more about the life's work of this remarkable woman, visit Eunice Kennedy Shriver: One Woman's Vision online at www.eunicekennedyshriver.org.
On July 24th, President Obama invited a group of 12 representatives of the disability community to meet privately with him and other Administration officials to discuss the future of the disability movement. More specifically, the discussion centered on how the President and the Disability Community can work together toward fulfilling the promise of the ADA: equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. Check out the Justice for All Blog for a summary of the meeting.
New Horizons Un-Limited would like to honor Ruby Nellins, who throughout the 104 years of her life gave to her community, her family and anyone in need of a helping hand. She is particularly remembered by her nephew, John and everyone that the two of them encountered. For almost 60 years, Ruby gave John the education, time, patience and love needed to help him succeed through the difficulties presented to him by cerebral palsy.
Ruby helped to give John an education in a time when educational options were few for children with disabilities. As a teacher in the Milwaukee Public Schools for 23 years until her retirement in 1947, she would devote her summers to teaching John and gave him a typewriter in the 5th grade. She fought to get John enrolled in the Milwaukee School for the Disabled and from which he graduated with a high school diploma. She helped him continue his education at UW-Madison extension and UW-Whitewater. She helped with small tasks every week, would set him up in classes with his typewriter and encouraged his independence. John is now a consumer editor for Opportunities, Inc.
We at New Horizons Un-Limited honor this outstanding caregiver and her dedication to her nephew.
This article is derived from "Oppotunities for gratitude.... Remembering Ruby," written by loving nephew John, - consumer editor, Opportunities, Inc.
"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit." ~Nelson Henderson
December 2009 - Pascal Malassigne "User Centered Designer" "Pascal Malassigne is a Professor of Industrial Design at MIAD, an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Medical College of Wisconsin, and a Research Career Scientist at the Milwaukee Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Professor Malassigné is the recipient of many design awards and patents and is widely recognized for his design research work. For the last twenty years, he has devoted all his non-teaching activities to design assistive and mobility products for individuals with disabilities. He is the author of many articles and papers and has lectured and made presentations on his work nationally and internationally." (From MIAD)
Malassigne encourages his students to design for human needs and focuses on design for people with disabilities. Recently his students worked with physically and cognitively disabled students at Riverside High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to design items to assist these students in everyday life. (From Milwaukee Metro Magazine, "Human Element", by Julie Larrinee)
In 2008, he was professor involved with the Tap the Potential, On Wheels project in which Milwaukee area design students were involved in experiencing living in a wheel chair to assist them in their design objectives. "The goal is for future designers of our environment to spend time experiencing the environment from a different perspective. Students see first hand what it is like to be two feet shorter, with a more limited reach range. They find that things that they are used to not paying attention to such as thresholds become much more obvious. We hope that their experience will impact on future designs of buildings and environmental spaces." "Students are provided with wheelchairs and asked to go through their normal daily routine including going to class, working, going through the college food lines and negotiating their dormitory rooms. They are encouraged to go outside and experience curb cuts, sidewalk slopes and public access into various buildings. Students from the Milwaukee Institute of Art Design, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette and the Milwaukee School of Engineering participated last year." (From Go Milwaukee County). In 2006, DesignIntelligence magazine named Professor Malassigné as one of the Most Admired Industrial Design Educators. He has been involved with the Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America's Human Factors & Ergonomics Society and the Industrial Designers Society of America's Design Foundation.
Jeffrey Bigham, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at the University of Washington is in the process of developing a web-based screen reader that can be used to read content from websites while browsing on any computer with a sound card. The new program provides text-to-speech translation as a web-based application without the need to install additional software. Referred to as WebAnywhere, it is designed to work with all browsers and operating systems. Users can try out an Alpha release of the WebAnywhere application, an open source project supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, at webanywhere.cs.washington.edu.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison Biomedical Engineering Doctoral student has recently developed a program that can post on Twitter, a popular social networking website, using only his thoughts. The technology uses a red cap fitted with electrodes that monitor brain activity, hooked up to a computer flashing letters on a screen. The student posted messages by concentrating on the letters he wanted to "type," then focusing on the word "twit" at the bottom of the screen to post the message. This technology can be a lifeline for individuals, whose brains function normally, but are otherwise unable to communicate due to any number of physical disabilities or neurological disorders. While brain-computer interface technology has been in development for many years, using a site such as Twitter can significantly simplify the interaction.
While it may be some time before such technology is made available, it is a step that will someday provide a means of communication for hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities. For more on the breakthrough and to see a video demonstration, visit CNN's article: Brain-Twitter project offers hope to paralyzed patients - www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/22/twitter.locked.in/index.html#cnnSTCText.
A particular social entrepreneur, Dina Abdel Wahab, has started preschools in Egypt for that nation's once neglected children of disabilities. As a new innovative activist she is determined to make a long-term systemic change in a society filled with inequality and inhumanity.
Dina Abdel Wahab's son, Ali, was born with Down Syndrome. In Cairo there were no preschools that would meet his needs or were equipped with special education teachers. She decided if Ali were to have a normal life, she would need to improve preschool education in Egypt. She created The Baby Academy, a chain of preschools for children three months to five years old, based in child-centered philosophy. She brought in people with backgrounds in early childhood education and special education and developed a program to meet the children's developmental needs and to help children achieve their potential. The mission of The Baby Academy is to become a leader in early childhood education throughout Egypt and the Middle East. Dina hopes to achieve this by opening more preschools in Cairo and franchising the idea. Dina Abdel Wahab also now advocates with the Egyptian government for inclusion opportunities for special needs children in Egypt's mainstream education system. For more information, visit the Dina Wahab article on the PBS website or The Baby Academy.
On July 26th, disability activists across the nation celebrated the 19th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). In recognition of this occassion, Hilda Solis, the U.S. Secretary of Labor, committed to improving employment prospects for individuals with disabilities in a letter to the American Association of People with Disabilities. As part of this letter, Ms. Solis acknowledged that "although the federal government strives to be a model employer, in actuality, the number of people with disabilities in the federal workforce has decreased in the past decade." She went on to say, "this trend must be reversed, and it is my commitment that the Department of Labor be a leader in this effort." As part of the Department of Labor's (DOL) effort to hire an additional 3000 workers, the Secretary is challenging DOL managers to actively recruit qualified workers with disabilities.
To learn more about the opportunities available at the Department of Labor, visit USAJOBS online at www.usajobs.opm.gov.
President Obama's nominee to fill the seat of Supreme Court Justice David Souter, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, has a record that is very favorable to individuals with disabilities. Judge Sotomayor, diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 8 and therefore considered a person with a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), has via her court rulings, shown a comprehensice understanding of disability rights and the language and purpose of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Rehabilitation Act, Social Security and more.
ADA Watch's Campaign for Fair Judge's is calling on their organizational partners and colleagues from the disability, mental health, education, civil rights and social justice communities to support Judge Sonia Sotomayor. To read more about the Judge's decisions in regards to disability cases, visit the Preliminary Review of Disability Cases of Judge Sonia Sotomayor prepared by the The Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
A newly announced initiative, "The Year of Community Living", will create new initiatives that will address the issue of choice in long-term care. More than $10 million will be made available via Health and Human services to make the right services available in appropriate settings when the individual needs them. To learn more about the HHS initiatives, visit the News Release.
Additionally, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will make $30 million in voucher assistance available to support approximately 4,000 Housing Choice Vouchers for non-elderly disabled families. HUD is making 1,000 of those vouchers available specifically for individuals transitioning out of nursing homes and other institutions. To learn more about these voucher opportunities, contact your local public housing authority (PHA). To find your local PHA visit http://www.hud.gov/offices/pih/pha/contacts.
July 2009 -In Memoriam - Kitti (Katherine) Dotzler
This past year one of our volunteer interns, Kitti (Katherine) Dotzler passed away July 11, 2009 at 56. Kitti served New Horizons Un-Limited as a student volunteer intern from Milwaukee Area Technical College Web Development Internship Program from October 2004 - June 2005. She assisted us with many of the technical and interactive areas of our website. Kitti was an Alverno College graduate, and worked recently at WPS in Madison. She was particularly devoted to our endeavors with people with disabilities and returned often to volunteer for NHU, hauling and cleaning computers, and assisting with website development. She was a wife, a mother and a dear friend of New Horizons Un-Limited. We miss Kitti, her joyful presence, organization, and dedication to detail.
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