La Costa de Oro Bus does not use the main terminals but a series of gas stations, restaurant or market place stalls: a crucial calculation because the buses bathrooms don't work requiring conditioning and accommodation to nature's necessities. We arrived at the Tijuana departure point at 11:30 am on Sunday and at our destination in Cuilapan de Guerrero, Oaxaca, at 5pm the following Tuesday. The drivers could not have been more professional, courteous, and considerate. I had two seats to myself the whole way. The five of us from CANOA left our belongings in the country house that offered us hospitality and went to the conference site to register. By the time that we took the local bus back to Cuilapan, we had been traveling 60 hours. The conference began the next day with a report by a representative from UNICEF explaining the general conditions of the handicapped: worldwide handicapped make up 10% of the population, for Latin America and the Caribbean this amounts to 60 million, of whom 90% live in poverty, and 60% live in dire poverty. Studies have found handicapped women to be even more dependent and isolated. The following speaker, Dr. Chapal, came from India and heads the U.N. office on community based rehabilitation. He will publish a manual for inclusive strategy for disabled people at the summer conference of the U.N. for the handicapped in Africa. He explained the central theme of the conference: the empowerment, involvement, and incorporation of the handicapped in the community. The president of Mexico's wife, Margarita Zavala, then addressed the assembly, delivering a well received explanation of Mexico's efforts to integrate handicapped people and afford opportunity for development in their own communities including rural and indigenous areas. She even stayed for the rest of the morning for the general assembly which followed the same pattern with the afternoons dedicated to smaller groups. The whole conference had continuous translation into sign and earphones for language translation.

  Several pivotal ideas evolved from presentations by representatives from South America: How to break the vicious circle of disability and poverty? How to promote participation in the community? How to sensitize the community and avoid paternalism, discrimination, and marginalization? One speaker noted the role of a solidarity economy not based on capitalism or state run operatives, but on cooperatives and efficient small scale economies reminiscent of John Paul II ideas (an interesting side note is the drifting away of Benedict to state obligated care for the less privileged). Many speakers mentioned the 2007 Declaration of the United Nations on the Rights of the Handicapped. The Declaration was ratified in Mexico on Sept 27 of the same year and is now the law guaranteeing to all handicapped people equal rights and access to health, social betterment, education, transportation, work, and sustainable living. The guarantee of law changed the perspective. Inclusion is no longer an act of charity or beneficial assistance, but a right. Handicapped people no longer have to beg for public recognition. Their inclusive development has become an obligation that the whole society recognizes. The members of the convention termed this a paradigm shift that demands response on all levels from national public policy, to state and local assemblies and all the way down to the communities where people of other capabilities live and interact with their neighbors. This process admits the reality of response. A team from Argentina explained their work with people handicapped by mental trauma, psychosocial problems, etc. After institution, the people so affected wind up back into the community anyway. They claimed that 25% of the general population experience at some time in their lives a severe mental challenge. Any effective treatment must then be based in the community. Rehabilitation based in the community then becomes a model for all heath services; large institutions that treat only urban residents have outlived an efficient model. Teams that offer networked solutions depending on local resources function better. The teams should feature cultural sensitivity and include people with disabilities who can understand the predicament of those in need. One presentation showed a slide of two young girls playing soccer. One of the girls calls to the other who is down syndrome, “you are handicapped.” The companion responds, “I'm Vilma. I am your friend. I like to play with you.” When community based rehabilitation has reached its goals, various members of the local community work together to foster sensitive opportunities for inclusive development. Large institutional models cannot reach far enough to promote broad based development. The strategy could include any social model including church groups where large institutions are increasingly failing to represent personal involvement. Membership should not include only those with the means of transportation and minimal resources required for participation. 

  The ultimate vision of community based rehabilitation is the formation of a new society that is marked not by economic advantage (a car in every garage,) nor fashionable residences, but by participation, inclusion, and opportunity for all.

  What does all this mean for us? We should involve the parents more. We should listen more to what they think is the best path to rehabilitation. We will form a community based team to reach out to those youngsters that live too far to come to our center. We will develop a video to promote acceptance for school age children with handicaps and form a teams to go to the local schools to promote inclusion. We will work on a model from Columbia that starts with a life history of the family to better understand the challenges of acceptance. We will network with other groups to exchange ideas and promotion of community based rehabilitation.

  We were privileged to participate. We are only a small group, but I think that we do real work in an area of challenges. We are an international group. The doctor from our project in Peru was with us at the conference. The center that we built outside of Arequipa now has 42 residents and a diagnostic center that treats the local community as well as outreach programs trying to keep families sustained and together. We are no where near the size of the Christian Blind Mission from Germany, but we do not have all their problems or inconsistencies. We made friends with many groups with whom we can share resources and information.

  The family that shared their house with us in Cuilapan treated us with more hospitality than what we could ever deserve. We ate tortillas and tamales from their corn, mole, chayotes from the garden. We went to mass on Sunday in a church dating from 1525 a stone's throw from the first house that Hernan Cortez build in Mexico. The trip left us with pleasant memories and challenges for the future.