BU Graduate Gets Human Rights Service Award

Defending the Human Rights of the Disabled

Published on http://www.diakonia.se/documents/public/WHERE_WE_WORK/Middle_East/MiddleEast_Newsletter_11.pdf

Getting an appointment to chat with Rima Canawati  can be quite a challenge. Running the Special Education and Communities units for Diakonia’s partner Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation, advocating for the rights of people with disabilities, reaching out to local communities and promoting integration of disabled children in state-run and other schools take up most of Rima’s daily routine. To us who know Rima and work with her on daily basis, it was therefore not all too surprising when we heard that the International Service Human Rights Awards (ISHRA) recognised her achievements and selected her for the Defence of Human Rights of Persons with Disability award.

The award is not only recognition of Rima’s years-long struggle to draw attention to the daily issues that people with disabilities in Palestine struggle with, but it is also an appreciation of Rima’s success in bringing about change from within. Rima’s inspiration to work towards the improvement of quality of life for people with disabilities derives from her own experience. She was discovered an illness called retinitis pigmentosa (RP) at the age of five when she started having visual problems. Retinitis pigmentosa is a rare, hereditary disease in which the light-sensitive retina of the eye slowly and progressively degenerates. The illness eventually results in blindness.

Rima completely lost her vision at the age of 25, three years after graduating from the Bethlehem University in English literature. And although she was not fully blind during all the years of education, her vision was severely impaired throughout most of her adolescence.  As such, Rima had to live in a conservative society that reluctantly tolerates bodily imperfections. With stigma towards her visual impairment nested within her own family, Rima struggled to first prove to them that her weakness can, with persistence, indeed be turned into strength. “Whenever I tried to help in the household, my relatives would say: “Don’t let Rima do it, she will trip and fall and hurt herself”. It was difficult for them to let me try and do things on my own”, remembers Rima. Her schooling period was not easy either; she recalls how she was often pestered by children and how she couldn’t find support even among her teachers. At the university, one of her lecturers even demanded that Rima and another of her blind colleagues from Gaza be excluded from the class, because they are “slowing down other students”.

However, Rima’s hunger for knowledge and diligence in studying soon threw over any doubts about her ability to fully integrate into the class: indeed, she became one of the best students whom many lecturers referred to as a great example of success. She even continued her education to get a Masters’ degree in special educational needs at the Lancaster University in Great Britain. But the biggest obstacle she ever had to overcome was implanted inside of herself: “It took me a long time to accept my blindness, particularly because I thought that I was the only one”, says Rima, and adds “I was so stubborn in trying to hide my visual impairment that I always insisted writing my exams all by myself. This sometimes got me into a great deal of trouble, because teachers thought I might have been cheating in exams when I was asking a colleague beside me to read the question for me!”

All the inconvenience she had to endure throughout her life, made Rima even more determined to fight for all those who lack the strength that she possessed. In their letter of notification about the award, ISHRA denotes that there was no doubt as to Rima’s determination and commitment: “Her work reaches out to the most marginalised and vulnerable persons with disability to meet their needs (health, rehabilitative, educational) from a human rights perspective. Her work focuses on educating families to help deal with their children with disability, to raise their awareness, and that of the public, on the rights of persons with disability by promoting the social model of disability in the community.” Indeed, Rima says that she has seen great improvements within her society throughout the years, but that the Palestinian Authority has a long way to go in order to achieve full integration of people with disabilities and improve respect of their rights. There is no doubt that Rima will continue her struggle until this is achieved.

Also featured by:

http://www.internationalservice.org.uk/what_we_do/development_awareness/human_rights_awards/awards_2009/default.aspx

http://www.icevi.org/pdf/ICEVI-E-News-October2009.doc