Korean young people with disabilities dream big after trip to USA

From Chosunilbo in S. Korea:

Kim Won-ki, 20, a sophomore at Korea Nazarene University who suffers from cerebral palsy, has a new dream: to study at Gallaudet University in Washington D.C. the world's only college for the hearing impaired. Early this month, Kim was part of a group of disabled young people who visited the United States as part of the cultural program sponsored by the Korean Society for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities. His visit to that university led to his discovery of a new path in life.

The program, called the Dream Team, is in its fourth year and offers disabled students a chance to experience the status of welfare and rights enjoyed by others like them in six countries around the world including the U.S., Germany and Australia. The program also offers them a chance to look for the way our welfare programs should be run. The team that went to the U.S. was made up of seven physically-challenged students. Gallaudet University, which they toured on Sept. 5, was built to accommodate disabled people and there were signs of this everywhere on campus. Dating back more than 140 years, it teaches all of its classes in sign language, and 60 percent of the faculty are themselves hearing impaired.

Throughout the buildings on campus were video relay service phones. Just dial and an interpreter appears on the monitor and helps the dialer communicate with people who don't know sign language. The buildings have open spaces in the middle so it is possible to see the entire building once you're inside. This makes it easier for students and professors to communicate with their hands and eyes. Every laboratory and dorm room has lights that flip on and off instead of doorbells. A university official said no disabled student will feel disabled once they are in the school, and 86 percent of Gallaudet graduates find jobs.

The Korean students also learned the importance of institutions and systems dedicated to people like them by visiting the presidential National Council on Disability and other governmental agencies. Michael Winter, a director of Federal Transit Administration, said 96 percent of buses in America are equipped to accommodate people in wheelchairs. At least 10 percent of all apartments and other large housing complexes must be equipped for disabled residents. Bias in hiring is reported to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Choi Sun-ho (26), who is blind, said the U.S. government in 1990 enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act, which he called the world's most comprehensive and powerful law protecting the rights of the disabled. Korea, which enacted its first law prohibiting discrimination against the disabled in April, is still in its infancy in this regard.

But through experience, they also learned that American society is not perfect. There were train stations where people in wheelchairs cannot embark or disembark from trains, while many old buildings are difficult to access due to a lack of ramps or elevators.

But the disabled Korean students were all moved by one thing: the way people treated the disabled and the attitudes they showed towards them. Im Ji-won (25), who rode on the subway and bus, said she never got awkward or troubled looks from people as she did in Korea when she traveled with two other wheelchair-bound students. She said what made her and the other members of the group the happiest was the way others made them feel as if they were not disabled but the same as anybody else.