Media astray on disabled issue

SURAKARTA, Central Java (JP): Experts and activists involved in a campaign to empower disabled people have lamented the lack of media exposure on the issue.

Dr. Handoyo Tjandrakusuma, the director of the Prof. Dr. Soeharso Community-Based Rehabilitation Development and Training Center, said that some of the efforts made by the media to run stories on people with disabilities have ended in misunderstanding.

He said that a journalist once wrote a story on the Center which ended up as a sad story on how urban doctors go to rural areas to help local disabled people.

He said that medical experts and activists have been campaigning to revise people's views on the disabled from the "handicapped" into "people needing empowerment".

He said on Wednesday that "good news is often not news" for some journalists.

Another activist from the Center, Heny Soelistyowati, said that there should be more news on disabled people. "The stories would help the campaign to make the community accept people with disabilities," she said during a break in the three-day meeting of the Forum of Resource Group for the Asian and Pacific Community-Based Rehabilitation and Human Resource Development.

Eighteen people representing 16 organizations from 14 countries in Asia and the Pacific attended the meeting.

Heny said that people tend to place those with disabilities in difficult situations. "A person whose feet are crooked remains handicapped in the eyes of the people around him, even if he later has an operation to have his feet straightened," she said.

Dr. Handojo said that one of the most important things that should be covered in media reports on disabilities is information on preventive measures. "The real issue on disabilities is how to prevent them from happening, for instance by immunization," he said.

Heny regretted that the organizations involved in empowering people with disabilities were yet to form a unified stance on disseminating information on the issue. (30/swe)