International Day of Disabled Persons Information, History, Theme

4to40.com December 2, 2023 Public Awareness 4,949 Views

International day of disabled persons was started celebrating internationally on 3rd of December every year and promoted as an international observance by the United Nations from 1992. The day was greatly emphasized to celebrate it yearly in order to promote the awareness about the people with disabilities as well as to encourage them by implementing a lot of assistance in their real life to enhance their way of life and remove the social stigma towards them. Since 1992, it has been celebrated continuously every year till this year with a lot of success all over the world.

The vital purpose of this day celebration is to improve the understandings of the people worldwide towards the people with disability issues as well as get together to support them to improve their self-esteem, well-being and rights in the society. It also looks for to involve all the persons with disabilities in the society in each facet of life such as the political, economic, social and cultural. That’s why it is celebrated by the title of “International Day of Disabled Persons“. Every year celebration of the international day of disabled persons focuses on the different issues of the disabled persons all across the world.

International Day of Disabled Persons: History

The year 1981 was announced as the “International Year of Disabled Persons” by the United Nations General Assembly in the year 1976. It was planned to emphasize the rehabilitation, prevention, promotion and equalization of opportunities for the persons with disabilities at the international, regional and national levels.

The theme decided for the celebration of international year of disabled persons was “full participation and equality”, to aware the people about the rights of disabled persons for their equal development in the societies, to emphasize the well being living for them as equal to normal citizens, and to improve their socio-economic condition.

The years from 1983-1992 was declared as the “United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons” by the United Nations General Assembly in order to offer the time frame to the Governments and other organizations so that they could properly implement all the recommended activities.

International Day of Disabled Persons: Themes

The celebration of the international day of disabled persons require an effective theme in order to get implemented properly the rules and regulations in the society for the disabled person. Following themes are the year wise themes of the international day of disabled persons celebrations are listed below:

1998: Arts, Culture and Independent Living
1999: Accessibility for all for the new Millennium
2000: Making information technologies work for all
2001: Full participation and equality: The call for new approaches to assess progress and evaluate outcome
2002: Independent Living and Sustainable Livelihoods
2003: A Voice of our Own
2004: Nothing about Us, Without Us
2005: Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Action in Development
2006: E-Accessibility
2007: Decent Work for Persons with Disabilities
2008: Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Dignity and justice for all of us
2009: Making the MDGs Inclusive: Empowerment of persons with disabilities and their communities around the world
2010: Keeping the promise: Mainstreaming disability in the Millennium Development Goals towards 2015 and beyond
2011: Together for a better world for all: Including persons with disabilities in development
2012: Removing barriers to create an inclusive and accessible society for all
2013: Break Barriers, Open Doors: for an inclusive society and development for all
2014: Sustainable Development: The Promise of Technology
2015: Inclusion matters: access and empowerment for people of all abilities
2016: Inclusion matters: access and empowerment for people of all abilities
2017: Transformation towards sustainable and resilient society for all
2018: Empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality
2019: Promoting the participation of persons with disabilities and their leadership: taking action on the 2030 Development Agenda
2020: Not all disabilities are visible
2021: Leadership and participation of persons with disabilities toward an inclusive, accessible and sustainable post-COVID-19 world
2022: Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fuelling an accessible and equitable world
2023: United in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities

How is to celebrate:

People from all around the world enthusiastically contribute to the celebration to actively promote the equal rights for disabled persons as well as to support and enhance their morality. This great event is celebrated by organizing the art exhibitions which promotes the artworks made by disabled people to show their abilities. People also involve in the protest activities in order to draw the people attention towards the difficulties of disabled people as well as increase the awareness about the precious roles of disabled people in the society.

Aim of Celebrating International Day of Disabled Persons

The crucial aim of celebrating this event is to increase the awareness and understanding of people towards the disability issues of disabled people.
To support the disabled people to get their self-respect, rights, welfare and security in the society.
To address all the issues of disabled person in all the aspects of life.
To analyze whether the rules and regulations implemented by the government organizations are working and following well or not.
To assist them with proper rehabilitation, offer equal opportunities, lessen poverty and encourage their role in the society.
To focus on their health, well being, education and social dignity.

Why it is Necessary to Celebrate:

Most of the people even do not known that how many people are disabled in the society around their houses. They are getting their equal rights like normal people in the society or not. They need some assistance by the normal people to rise in the life, to get dignity and life of well being. But, generally the people in the society never know all the needs of them. According to the record, it is found that approximately 15% of the total population of the world is disabled people.

So, it is very necessary to celebrate this event to get people aware about the real condition of the people with disabilities. People with the disabilities come under “the world’s largest minority” and faces a lot of obstructions in all the aspects of life because of the lack of proper resources and rights for them.