Disabled and raped in Sierra Leone, an African woman inspires others to help those struggling in the war-torn country

From The Observer in Canada:

Mariatu Kamara was a 12-year-old girl in Sierra Leone when rebel soldiers cut off her hands.

She was traveling to a neighbouring village when she was attacked and raped. She barely survived.

Before reaching a hospital near the capital city of Freetown, she happened upon a man who helped her and offered her a mango. Though she struggled to eat it without hands the taste reaffirmed her desire to live.

“Even though my arms were bleeding I was determined to hold the mango myself,” she said.

Kamara spent the next three years begging on the streets of Freetown and living with extended family and friends in a camp for amputees.

At Grace United Church on June 1, Kamara, 22, spoke to a crowd of more than 100 people about her ordeal as part of a literary event featuring her book, “The Bite of the Mango,” written with journalist Susan McClelland.

Kamara, who arrived in Canada in 2002, was invited to Sarnia because of Grade 7/8 class at Sir John Moore Community School in Corunna. After reading her book in class, they were so inspired by her story they Kamara through her website, http://www.mariatufoundation.com/.

They also raised money for Kamara’s foundation, which aids women and children still suffering in aftermath of Sierra Leone’s civil war, from 1991 to 2002.

On June 1 the students presented her with a cheque for $1,500.

She was thrilled by their generosity.

“I think that’s the greatest thing you can do,” she said. “Trust me, the funds you’ve raised are going to go to a good use.”

Kamara, who attends George Brown University in Toronto, said she plans to return to her home country to help those in need after graduation.

Once, she was asked if she wants revenge for the things that were done to her. After thinking about the question, Kamara responded that revenge and hate are for the ignorant.

“Revenge gives way to more revenge and brings people to a lower level than the animals,” she said.

Education, she said, has the potential to solve many of the world’s problems since much of the evil people do is done in ignorance.

She is now an education advocate and spokesperson for UNICEF Canada, speaking about the impact of war on children.

Suspect in murder of abortion doctor had bouts of mental illness, family says

From The New York Times:

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — From the one-story house she once shared in this Kansas City suburb with her former husband, now suspected in the death of a doctor who performed late-term abortions, Lindsey Roeder recalled on June 1 how he seemed to undergo a drastic personality shift more than a decade ago.

“The man I married disappeared into this other person,” Ms. Roeder, shaken and puffy eyed, said of Scott Roeder, who was being held in a Wichita jail in the death of Dr. George R. Tiller, (pictured) who was fatally shot at his Wichita church on May 31. The authorities said charges were expected soon against Mr. Roeder.

“He wanted a scapegoat,” Ms. Roeder said. “First it was taxes — he stopped paying. Then he turned to the church and got involved in anti-abortion.”

But Mr. Roeder, 51, had not been among the people considered most worrisome to some abortion rights groups, some of which keep a close eye on anti-abortion groups and their Web sites to monitor what they consider threats, leaders here said. “Nobody recognizes his name,” said Marla Patrick, a state coordinator for the National Organization for Women in Kansas.

One frequent demonstrator, Eugene Frye, 64, said Mr. Roeder told him at a protest about two weeks ago outside a clinic in Kansas City, Kan., that he had attended the trial this year in which Dr. Tiller was acquitted of violating state abortion laws.

Mr. Roeder called the trial “a sham,” Mr. Frye said. “He felt the system had bitterly let down justice and let Tiller go free.”

A worker at the Kansas City clinic said that Mr. Roeder was suspected of gluing the clinic’s locks years ago and that he had been seen trying to do the same thing before dawn on Saturday, the day before Dr. Tiller’s death.

The worker, who would not give his name out of concern for his safety, said he called the Federal Bureau of Investigation about Saturday’s incident and about a similar incident involving Mr. Roeder a week earlier.

Law enforcement officials here and in Wichita, a conservative town that has been a focal point of tense abortion debate in large part because of Dr. Tiller’s clinic, gave little sense of whether they had previously viewed Mr. Roeder as a concern. After he was taken into custody, they indicated that they were only beginning to delve into his past and his associations.

Still, as Mr. Roeder’s relatives and others who had come into contact with him over the years began looking backward, they said they now saw some signs that might have hinted at more serious trouble ahead. For more than 10 years, Mr. Roeder had been linked, at various times and in varying degrees, to the Freemen, a group that rejected federal authority and the banking system, and to people who believe that the killing of abortion providers was justified by the abortions it prevented.

In 2007, someone identifying himself as Scott Roeder posted a message on the Web site of Operation Rescue, a group based in Wichita that had devoted much of its effort to blocking Dr. Tiller from performing late-term abortions. The posting read, in part: “Tiller is the concentration camp ‘Mengele’ of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation.”

The leader of Operation Rescue, who denounced the shooting of Dr. Tiller, said he had never met Mr. Roeder, who was not a contributor, volunteer or regular member. And the head of the Kansas Coalition for Life, whose volunteers spent hours outside Dr. Tiller’s clinic each week trying to sway patients from abortions, said he had never met Mr. Roeder, though he recalled receiving three phone calls out of the blue from him last August.

Years earlier, Mr. Roeder belonged to a Kansas group known as the Patriot Movement, a citizens’ militia which, according to a fellow member, Morris Wilson, 70, aimed to “kick Uncle Sam in the shins” by bucking rules like mounting license plates on cars. “He didn’t like taxation and overregulation,” Mr. Wilson recalled, adding that Mr. Roeder had outspoken views against abortion.

“He was trying to get people aware of what was going on, and put these guys out of business,” he said. “But I never seen a temper.”

Mr. Roeder also encountered Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines whose publication, Prayer and Action News, had received articles from Mr. Roeder. Mr. Leach said Mr. Roeder had presented strong anti-government views (he believed the government tracked money, Mr. Leach recalled, and offered his own method to “remove the magnetic strip from a five-dollar bill”) and views similar to Mr. Leach’s own on abortion. “To call this a crime is too simplistic,” Mr. Leach said of Dr. Tiller’s death.

As admirers of Dr. Tiller mourned his death on Monday, his clinic, in a beige, squat building in Wichita, was closed. Clusters of flowers had been left on a wall outside, and the police monitored the facility. The future of the center, one of about three in the country to provide abortions to women late in their second trimesters and into their third trimesters of pregnancy, appeared uncertain.

Some representatives of Dr. Tiller said they did not know if the clinic would reopen, given the skills required and the safety issues now clear. But a Nebraska doctor who had worked with Dr. Tiller at his clinic told a local newspaper that the place would reopen for patients on Monday — a notion anti-abortion forces said they were preparing for with the usual protesters.

At some other clinics around the country, federal authorities ordered increased security from the United States Marshals Service, which had provided protection for Dr. Tiller in 1991, 1994 and 2001. “In each instance the protective details ended once a decision had been made that the threat had been mitigated or was no longer present,” a spokesman for the Marshals Service said.

Dr. Tiller, who had previously been shot in both arms and had seen the clinic bombed and vandalized, was known for taking security precautions, his friends said Monday. At times, he wore a bulletproof vest and traveled with a burly, private guard. As recently as May, Dr. Tiller reported to the F.B.I. that wires to surveillance cameras had been cut at the clinic and that a hole had been sliced in the roof. The F.B.I. said Monday that the case was unsolved.

But Dr. Tiller had never been cowed by threats, said Lee Thompson, a lawyer who represented him. He always wore a pin that read, “Attitude Is Everything,” Mr. Thompson said.

In Overland Park, Ms. Roeder, a teacher, said Mr. Roeder had seemed ambivalent on matters of abortion, politics and religion when they first met and married in 1986. He had worked a steady manufacturing job at an envelope company, she said, until he seemed unable to pay the bills.

David Roeder, Mr. Roeder’s brother, issued a statement on behalf of the family expressing shock and sadness over Dr. Tiller’s death, and suggesting that Mr. Roeder had “suffered from mental illness at various times in his life.”

In 1996, the Roeders divorced, and Mr. Roeder worked odd jobs, moving from place to place and living most recently in Kansas City, Mo.

In April 1996, the police stopped Mr. Roeder near Topeka for a traffic violation. Inside the car, they found a pound of gunpowder and a homemade fuse, according to published reports. Mr. Roeder was found guilty of charges including one connected to the explosives and served jail time, though an appeals court later dismissed the explosives charges after Mr. Roeder’s lawyers argued that the search of his car had been improper.

At his sentencing in the case, The Topeka Capital-Journal noted, Judge James Buchele of Shawnee County District Court said Mr. Roeder presented a “threat of danger to the public.”

Mr. Roeder’s 22-year-old son has been tormented, his mother said, by all that has occurred. “He keeps asking,” she said, “ ‘Could I have seen something, stopped something?”

Australian teen with speech disability sues his school district for years of alleged discrimination

From The Age in Australia:

A teenage boy with a severe speech problem is suing the Education Department for almost a decade of alleged discrimination, which his parents say has led to poor academic results and chronic frustration.

Meredith Woodward is suing the Department on behalf of her son, Druian Woodward, 13, a student of Monterey Secondary College in Frankston, who earlier went to Karingal Primary School.

Ms Woodward alleges the schools indirectly discriminated against Druian by not providing him with ongoing speech therapy and did not protect him from bullying. She also alleges the schools failed to develop a study plan appropriate to Druian's disability and failed to adequately support him.

Druian, who has severe language disorder and difficulty processing language, also cannot hear and understand speech in a noisy environment.

A statement of claim filed in the Federal Court by Druian's solicitors, Access Law, alleges that the lack of assistance offered to the boy "has led to his educational outcomes being severely diminished, to his participation in class being restricted and to plummeting self-esteem".

The department, which denies the claims, has imposed a condition that Druian be educated without help.

Ms Woodward is seeking damages and a declaration that the department discriminated against her son since 2001.

David Perkins, for Druian, told the Federal Court his mother was forced to develop Druian's study plan herself, while the family paid for a speech pathologist.

But the court heard that the department would argue Druian had access to education and was not at a significant disadvantage. A trial will be held in October.

The case comes after the legal success of Rebekah Turner, 18, a VCE student with a severe language disorder and learning disability, who was recently awarded more than $50,000 and given a full-time teacher's aide after she sued the department.

NY developmental disabilities group to honor Gov. Palin

From Newsday:

ST. JAMES, N.Y. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (pictured)will receive an award from a New York group that advocates for people with developmental disabilities.

The Independent Group Home Living Foundation says the former Republican vice presidential candidate will be honored next weekend on Long Island.

A spokesman for the governor did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment on June 1.

The organization says it is honoring Palin for her support of families who have children with special needs.

Palin herself has a special-needs child, a son with Down syndrome.

The fundraising gala on Sunday also marks the organization's 30th anniversary.

IGHL serves more than 5,000 children, adults and their families.

Disability advocates across Wales plan demonstrations over inaccessible public transport

From BBC News:

A series of demonstrations are taking place across Wales to highlight difficulties faced by disabled people accessing public transport.

The events in Wrexham, Cardiff and Newport have been organised by the Multiple Sclerosis Society Cymru.

The charity is calling on the assembly government to do more to make rail and bus services easier to use.

The assembly government agreed there was a need to continue to improve accessibility to public transport.

Steve Neal is one of those who demonstrated at Wrexham General station (pictured) on June 1.

The 55-year-old was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) 20 years ago, and has relied on a wheelchair to get about for the last five years.

"You can't just book a train and turn up," explained the former mechanical project manager, who is a member of the MS Society in Wrexham.

"You have to find out whether there is access to the platform, whether you will need help at your destination, simple things like whether there is platform lift - and if it will be working."

He said that in many rail stations, including Wrexham, platform lifts can be closed in the evening.

"I was aware of this on a trip back from Cardiff, but in my case I was lucky.

"The train operator arranged for a taxi to pick me up in Shrewsbury and take me home."

But he said disabled friends and wheelchair users he knew had often hit travel snags.

"One of my colleagues was helped on to a train, but the staff found that the wheelchair couldn't fit in the train corridor, so he had to be helped out of the chair to his seat," said Mr Neal.

"Another, a woman, was left in the corridor in her wheelchair for her whole journey.

"It's only when you are actually in a wheelchair and you have to get from A to B that you realise just how difficult it can be."

The issue is also due to be raised in a Liberal Democrat debate in the assembly on Wednesday.

Funding for improvements to trains and their stations is not a devolved issue, and rests with the Department of Transport.

The department, with Network Rail, is in the middle of a 10-year programme to improve access, spending £370m on 200 stations in Britain under its "Access for All" scheme.

A Welsh Assembly Government spokesperson said "The Welsh Assembly Government agrees that there is a need to continue to improve accessibility to public transport.

The assembly government is working with Network Rail and other public transport providers to encourage improved access., he added.

"All new stations and any that are substantially improved have to meet the regulations of the Disability Discrimination Act ( DDA).

"This is not the case for old, unimproved stations.

"As a matter of course when the Welsh Assembly Government unds new stations or substantially improves them, they are all designed to comply with DDA, for example the new station of the Vale of Glamorgan and Ebbw Valley railway lines.

Connecticut teen with Asperger's top distance runner for his high school

From the Hartford Courant:

GROTON, Conn. - Before Greg Sugar (pictured) takes his place in line at the bottom of the hill, he jokes with a group of teammates. He smiles and laughs. They smile and laugh back.

He then turns his attention toward his coach, Jeremy Beebe, perched on a rock halfway up the incline, and begins his ascent.

Four years ago, Sugar, now 18 and the king of Grasso Tech running, was nowhere near the top of the hill.

He has Asperger's syndrome, a disorder under the spectrum of autism that affects his ability to communicate and interact with others. It can cause children to become isolated from their peers.

"I'm not as socially outgoing as a lot of people," he said. "I'd say I've gotten better with it."

The quiet boy who entered the small Groton school is now a more confident young man who will compete for the Roger Williams University cross country and outdoor track teams beginning in the fall, and those around him are pointing to one thing — running.

"It's really given him his identity in the school," Beebe said. "When people walk down the hallway, they look at him and say, 'That's the kid that runs fast.'"

Sugar was in elementary school in Pawcatuck when his parents, Mark and Kathy, took him to see a specialist at Yale who diagnosed him with Asperger's.

"It made it a lot easier when you see that your kid is not like everybody else, and you know there's a reason for it," Mark said.

Although the diagnosis was a relief, treatment isn't simple. There are behavior sessions and special considerations at school, but not much can change the misunderstandings among young students.

"There were a lot of kids that didn't understand him," teammate and childhood friend Jon Adcock said. "It was hard for him going through that."

Sugar's alternate therapy began one day during fifth-grade gym class, when he and his classmates were instructed to run a mile. He still remembers it perfectly.

"I ran it in 8:16," he said. "That sparked my interest in running."

Sugar, whose father ran cross country at Maine Maritime, signed up for the team at Pawcatuck Middle School, but did not excel as a runner.

And at school, there was still discomfort between Sugar and most of his peers. Mark still remembers chaperoning Greg's eighth-grade class trip to Washington, D.C.

"There was one boy that was his friend and wanted to go off with the other kids," he said. "I didn't blame him, but it kind of hurt my heart to see him sitting by himself."

So, on his own, Greg made the decision to attend Grasso Tech after attending an open house. The choice would let Greg break free from the pack, but not right away. Asperger's still caused him to struggle. Beebe, then the girls cross country coach, recalled his first year knowing Greg.

"I remember him not being able to make eye contact," Beebe said. "I remember him not being able to say more than four or five words [to someone] in a sequence."

But on the track and the course, Sugar got better and better, winning the Constitution State Conference cross country championship as a sophomore. Those who were used to looking back at him were now staring at his heels.

"Fifth through eighth grade I was a faster runner," Adcock said. "Then I get to high school and he just kind of blows by me."

Now in his senior season, Sugar has done things no other Grasso Tech runner has done.

On Tuesday he set the CSC championship meet record in the 3,200 (10:28). His 4:47 mile time is a program-best, and beat his father's high school time of 4:50. Sugar's best 5K time is 17:19, and he placed second in the CSC cross country championships his junior and senior seasons.

In this year's outdoor season he has posted state qualifying times in the 3,200, 1,600 (4:47.3) and 800 (2:07.1). He'll run all three at Tuesday's Class S meet, and in the 3,000 steeplechase on June 16-17.

"He's definitely the best distance runner here, ever," Beebe said.

As Sugar distanced himself from the field, he became closer to his peers. He's still somewhat quiet, but can talk forever on topics such as running, video games and heavy metal. His wry sense of humor has also become apparent to those around him.

"The change has been so dramatic," Beebe said.

Mark Sugar agreed.

"[Running has helped him] in two ways," he said. "Overall sense of accomplishment and confidence. The kids at Grasso really like him."

Now Sugar walks through the halls with his head high and is looking forward to a class party and a summer of playing video games and jamming guitar.

"And," he said, "obviously run."

First quadriplegic sent to prison in Australia

From The Sunday Telegraph:

A quadriplegic whose disability was compared to the late Superman actor Christopher Reeve, has been jailed for up to 10 years for conspiring to manufacture ecstasy.

Paul Baker, 36, of Colyton in Sydney's west, is the first quadriplegic in NSW history to receive a full-time custodial sentence.

District Court Judge Robert Toner's decision last Wednesday will force jail authorities to spend thousands of dollars modifying a cell for Baker - once they find a prison that can accommodate his considerable needs, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

The NSW Department of Corrective Services has admitted it is yet to find a permanent jail cell for Baker, who is morbidly obese and needs 98 hours of care per fortnight, which will be provided by an independent care agency.

He cannot eat, drink, go to the toilet or wash by himself and requires a hoist to transfer him to bed from his motorised wheelchair - which he controls with a slight movement in one hand.

In court, Baker's lawyer compared his condition to that of Christopher Reeve, who became a quadriplegic after a horse-riding accident and died in 2004.

"We set up a committee to deal with (Baker) because we knew he would probably be getting a custodial sentence," a Corrective Services spokesman said.

"At the moment he is in Long Bay (jail) hospital in the aged-care and frailty unit. He'll be in there for an assessment and planning period while we look at various jails to figure out which would be most suitable to cope with his level of disability."

The department said it would cost about $200,000 per year to look after Baker, double the cost of an average "secure" prisoner.

Some $4000 was spent on modifying a truck to convey him from court to jail last week. It will be used again when, and if, authorities decide to relocate him.

His cell will have to be fitted with a hoist, special furniture and air-conditioning because Baker can no longer control his own body temperature, authorities said.

A former director of import companies, Baker pleaded guilty in 2007 to one count of conspiring with three other men to manufacture one tonne of ecstasy.

The court heard that Baker ordered importation of glassware used in the manufacture of the drug and a pill press found in his home. These were also used in a clandestine lab at Badgerys Creek.

The drug was to be manufactured with other chemicals and combined with 11 200-litre containers of methylamine, imported from China in 2005.

Police moved in before any drugs were made, the court heard. Judge Toner sentenced Baker to a maximum of 10 years six months, with a non-parole period of three years and six months.

Baker became a quadriplegic in 1995, after a car accident.

Obituary: New Hampshire advocate worked to pass law so adults with disabilities can work full time and retain Medicaid benefits

From the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire:

David Robar (pictured) was 26, an elite ski jumper from New London who tried out for the 1988 Olympic team, when a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed below the chest. He spent half a year in the hospital before emerging with a new passion in life.

Robar became an advocate in Concord and Washington, D.C., for people with disabilities, winning over lawmakers as he explained how various bills would give people like him the rights assumed by other Americans. Among his proudest accomplishments was the passage of a law that allowed people with disabilities to work without losing Medicaid benefits, a need Robar explained so convincingly that then-President Bill Clinton cited his story in speeches on the subject.

Robar died Sunday in his New London home of pneumonia related to his injury. He was 44. Those who knew him said his advocacy advanced the cause of thousands of people, while his personal warmth persuaded many newly disabled that they could lead full, though different, lives.

"He was tenacious when it came to the idea that people with disabilities should be considered equal citizens and have opportunities to achieve the American dream," said Clyde Terry, CEO of Granite State Independent Living, where Robar worked since 1992. "He wholeheartedly embraced his lot in life after his accident, and it didn't get him down, but rather he drew strength from that to say, 'I'm still a full human being and I can still make a difference.' "

Born in July 1964 in South Weymouth, Mass., Robar moved to New London with his family three years later. He and his sister and brother grew up skiing at King Ridge each Friday with their classmates, and Robar took to the slopes especially well.

He graduated from Kearsarge Regional High School in 1982 and went on to study civil technology at the Thompson School at the University of New Hampshire. He worked for builders in Nashua and Boston, but as the 1988 Winter Olympics drew near, he headed to Lake Placid, N.Y., and spent a year training for the trials. Though he did not make the team, competing in the trials was an achievement important to him throughout his life, said Jeff Dickinson, a friend and colleague who came to know Robar years after his accident.

"Once in a while when you got him to talk about it, it was really an important thing for him that he had excelled to that extent," Dickinson said. "For a lot of folks it would be really hard to go from that to having a disability where you weren't able to be as athletic. . . . He just sort of shifted his focus, and he brought as much passion for advocacy and politics later in life as he had younger in life as an athlete."

Robar had returned home to study at New England College when a motorcycle accident in October 1990 injured his spinal cord. He was left paralyzed from the top of his chest down and could not move his hands. He needed a high-tech wheelchair to move, and attendants to help him get out of bed each morning. Despite this, his mother said, he did not succumb to depression.

"When he was first injured, he said, 'My life will be different, but my life will be good,' " Elaine Robar said. "And he just kept going that way, he really did."

Robar took great pride in living independently, she said, and did not move back home after the accident. He rented an apartment and then bought a house across the street from his parents in New London. He loved driving his van, navigating by voice to his many meetings.

He worked a number of jobs during his 17 years at Granite State Independent Living, editing the nonprofit's newsletter and coordinating events before turning to advocacy. While working on a contest for adaptive technologies, his parents said, he met Dean Kamen and became an early tester for the inventor's iBOT wheelchair, a predecessor to the Segway scooter. The iBOT functions like a standard power wheelchair but also allows users to raise themselves to reach high shelves, climb up and down staircases and cross uneven terrain.

"It was a big secret," said his father, Donald Robar. "It was going to change the world for people with disabilities."

Robar did not end up using the iBOT, but he would use his power wheelchair to whiz around the office of Granite State Independent Living, said Norma Lemire, his supervisor in recent years.

He never regained use of his fingers, and so colleagues saw him typing grants with the use of a strap-on device. Though upbeat, he confided from time to time with other wheelchair users about the chronic pain and pressure wounds that had become part of their lives, said Mark Race, a friend and colleague who also has a spinal cord injury.

From a young man who knew little about politics, Donald Robar said, his son grew increasingly engaged as he saw firsthand how policy and lawmaking affect people with disabilities. He traveled often to Washington, D.C., and became a presence at the State House, as he testified and lobbied for various bills.

Robar was a skilled advocate who could persuade skeptics with such finesse that they sometimes took credit for his ideas, Race said.

"That way it would be win-win," he said. "He'd get you to think it was your idea."

His proudest accomplishment was working to pass a law that allows adults with disabilities to work full time while retaining their Medicaid benefits. Medicaid pays for certain needs, like personal aides, that some people with disabilities need so they can work, but full-time employment had disqualified some from the program. He spoke with Clinton about the issue at a roundtable during the president's second term, and his story became one Clinton told during speeches in favor of changing the law.

Robar spoke about his desire to work at the 2000 Democratic National Convention and kept photos of that appearance in his cubicle for years after, a colleague said. He was also present when then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen signed the change into New Hampshire law in 2001.

The charisma that contributed to his political success made him comfortable with the national media, persuasive among legislators and inspiring to individuals recently affected by spinal cord injuries, Lemire said.

"People would gravitate toward him," she said. "There was just something about him that was truly, truly more than charming. It was magnetic."

Robar spoke out during the 2008 campaign in favor of stem cell research. As his health declined in recent months, he remained focused on expanding rights for the disabled and longed to return to work, Lemire said.

"I think his disability probably in some strange way challenged him, and he responded so that it brought out the very best he had to offer this life," she said.

Deaf-blind computer programmer in Dubai is a role model for success

From Gulf News in the United Arab Emirates:

DUBAI -- At a first glance, nobody would notice that a woman sitting behind a computer - totally engrossed in her work - is actually blind.

Najat Saeed Hussain (pictured) is a woman of substance who takes her duties seriously and has never allowed the fact that she is both blind and deaf to stand in her way.

Najat uses a hearing aid to communicate. Gulf News caught up with Najat at her workplace at Dubai Health Authority premises to get an insight into her unique and determined personality.

"I was not born blind, but I totally lost my sight after two accidents. One accident was when I was hit by a ball in my eyes as I was playing with some children. Few years later, I lost sight in my other eye in a similar incident," she said.

She recalled her painful endeavours to regain her sight through a series of treatments, which turned out to be unsuccessful.

"I used to get injections for my eyes, but then there was bleeding and I felt pain in my entire face. I had to undergo several treatments, but at the end, I lost my hearing ability and today I hear using [a] hearing aid," Najat said.

Najat's studies specialised in operational research, which, according to her, is a broad field based on dealing with numbers.

Najat graduated from Hertfordshire University in the United Kingdom with a bachelor's degree in 1999. She lived in London for 10 years during which she learnt Braille and walking with the use of cane. Najat also learned to do some craftwork.

She also learnt to type on a typewriter before the proliferation of computers.

Najat went to the Royal National College for the Blind in the United Kingdom, which is a rehabilitation centre for blind people. It was there that she developed her skills and learnt how to use a computer, while being instructed by a Libyan man at the college.

"I came back to the UAE in 1985 and worked in the health department after I worked as a computer programmer for one year in the United Kingdom and did some basic language there," Najat said.

She said her dilemma she faced on coming back was on what she was going to do for living.

"I was appointed as a computer programmer at the health department, but I did not really get the chance to excel, as I had learnt sophisticated computer programming in the United Kingdom," she said.

This was because many people could not look beyond the fact that she was blind, she said.

After all the struggle, Najat says the place she is working at currently at, as a computer programmer, is what she was looking for.

"Here, I found my identity because my work involves dealing and communicating with people directly. This way I benefit others and I also learn from them," she said.

Her daily tasks also include answering emails and processing online requests through emails.

"My colleagues often ask me how can I deal with the computer and carry out this kind of job while being blind. I have one answer for them - which is [that] a blind person can do whatever he or she wants if they really wanted to and had the will to do it," Najat said.

Despite going through a lot in life, Najat is ambitious and is intent on realising her dreams.

"My wish is to see more attention given to blind people here, even by commercial companies.

"There needs to be more awareness and guidance for blind people so they can reach to top levels."

Najat Saeed Hussain appealed to concerned authorities and centres for people with special needs to provide her with a computer equipped with the Braille system and talking programmes so that she can continue her studies and perfect her skills at home.

"In the United Kingdom, we could rent the computer along with other equipment to use at home and then return it to the centre when we finish. I wish I could get those equipment to continue my studies," she said.

Blind Paralympian joins Australian "Dancing with the Stars" show

From The Daily Telegraph in Australia:

Gerrard Gosens (pictured) will never lay eyes on his dance partner or see the moves she's teaching him, but for the blind Paralympic runner it's all about feeling the rhythm.

In a world first, the new season of Dancing With The Stars will feature Gosens, adventurer and athlete.

When the program premieres in July it will be the first time the adventurer, who says diving with sharks, climbing Mt Everest and competing in front of 90,000 isn't half as scary as participating in the show, takes to a dance floor.

"This is the most terrifying thing I have ever done," Gosens said.

"I've always stayed off the dance floor because, as you can appreciate, a totally blind person can't make out their surrounds.

"There's a lot of trust in this, but my dance partner and I have already developed some tricks."

While Home and Away actor Lincoln Lewis and stand-up comedian Fiona O'Loughlin have been rumoured to appear on the program, Gosens is the first star to sign to the ninth season of the show.

The Brisbane resident will be the second disabled personality in the world to feature on Dancing With The Stars after Academy Award winning actress Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, participated in the US version last year.

Gosens is approaching the competition like competing at the Paralympics - he wants to win.

"The other competitors can look in the mirror and get their position to see if they look good, I can't do that. To put it into perspective, it took me 30 years to know that an elephant was hairy because all the figurines are smooth. It's been like that with dancing."

Like Matlin, who dispelled misconceptions about deafness when she appeared on the program, Gosens hopes to do the same for blindness.

"It's more than blind faith. I want to challenge a few perceptions," he said.

``It would be great if one day science gives me the ability to replay this and I can see what I've done. It's coming along in leaps and bounds but just to be able to see my kids and even myself would be incredible."

As for tactics, Gosens has one up his sleeve already to put his Dancing With The Stars competitors off.

"I will be getting to the lights and turning them off so the other dances know what it's like to be in my position," Gosens says.

Singapore nightclub apologizes after denying entry to an amputee

From the Straight Times:

A popular nightclub has apologised to an amputee after denying him access to its premises when he went there while on a night out with friends.

The 28-year-old, who was on crutches, was turned away at The Butter Factory at One Fullerton.

The club's staff and security said they were worried for his safety and feared he might blame the club if he should hurt himself. They also said the crutches could be used as a weapon.

Some psychiatrists want to add extreme bitterness to DSM as mental illness

From Canwest News Service:

Bitterness should be classified an official brain illness, according to psychiatrists who say people who experience prolonged bitterness over a breakup or conflict at work are "ill" and need treatment.

They are proposing that “post traumatic embitterment disorder” be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychiatry’s official catalogue of mental dysfunction.

Now in its fourth edition, DSM is undergoing its first major revision since 1994. DSM-V is due to be published in 2012, and other possible new contenders for inclusion include Internet addiction disorder, apathy disorder, compulsive buying disorder, compulsive pathological overeating, hoarding, “premenstrual dysphoric disorder” and “partner relational problem” — “a pattern of interaction between spouses or partners characterized by negative communication (criticisms, for example), distorted communications (such as unrealistic expectations) or non-communication (withdrawal).”

Working groups composed of more than 120 scientific researchers and clinicians are drafting diagnostic criteria for mood disorders, anxiety disorders,

personality disorders and psychoses. They’re deciding which disorders should be included, revised or removed. Field tests of new diagnostic criteria are due to begin this summer.

With each revision comes new disorders. The manual — as influential in Canada as it is worldwide — listed 112 disorders when first published in 1952. The most recent issue contains 374, and runs 886 pages.

As the number of diagnoses grows, so too does the chorus from critics that the book pathologizes behaviour that’s within the normal spectrum.

Post-traumatic embitterment disorder is described as a pathological reaction to a single, negative life event, such as conflict at work, unemployment, divorce, illness or separation. People view the event as unjust, a violation of their basic beliefs and values, and "want the world to see how badly they have been treated," according to published studies.

“People feel wronged, humiliated and that some injustice has been done to them,” says Dr. Michael Linden, the German psychiatrist who named the behaviour after reporting an increase in affected patients in the wake of German reunification.

“The critical part is this lasting and very intensive emotional embitterment, a mixture of depression and helplessness and hopelessness. . . . It’s a very nasty emotion.”

People have intrusive thoughts and memories about the event, and get locked into a serious mental state, he says. “These people don’t have the feeling that they must change, but rather have the idea that the world should change or the oppressor should change, so they don’t ask for treatment.”

Ten years of research suggests it affects one to two per cent of the population, but Linden says the incidence rises during times of societal change — including economic upheaval. "We are all vulnerable in those areas which are especially important to us. So, if you really think your job is the centre of your life, that’s where you’re vulnerable."

He says adding severe embitterment to the manual of mental illness could help patients get help and encourage research into the disorder.

But some critics question just how doctors could distinguish between irrational and reasonable bitterness.

Christopher Lane, a professor of literature at Northwestern University and author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Becomes a Sickness, says it’s one thing to try to reach “that fraction of the profoundly disaffected which snaps suddenly and commits desperate crimes as a result.”

But Lane says embitterness overlaps with other disorders in the DSM, including “intermittent explosive disorder,” and that adding a separate DSM code for it would make it “almost impossible to distinguish the acutely stressed from the vast majority of the population that bears grudges or is simply justifiably angry about the current state of the country.”

In his blog for Psychology Today, Lane writes: “Imagine, if you will, the inevitable ads: ‘Think it’s just bitterness from job loss, foreclosure on your home, or that nonexistent pension for which you’ve been saving all your working years? It may be post-traumatic embitterment disorder, a mental illness that some doctors think is due to a chemical imbalance . . .’ ”

The disorder could be added to the appendix of the next edition of DSM as a sickness worthy of further study, joining such others as caffeine withdrawal and premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD. The guidebook says a woman may be experiencing PMDD if she has five out of 11 symptoms that include anxiety, feeling “keyed up” or “on edge.” Some experts are now advocating PMDD be formally classified a mental disorder.

“There’s a sizable amount of literature pushing back against it, saying there is astonishingly flimsy evidence for this and that it’s a catastrophic mistake to represent it as a form of depression,” Lane said in an interview.

Apathy disorder also has been suggested for inclusion in the DMS. Experts have argued apathy can occur alone, or in conjunction with such other conditions as Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and stroke. It is also a side-effect of antidepressants, sedatives and other psychotropic drugs.

“The obvious situation there would be to scale back the number of psychotropics people are taking, not to pathologize the side-effects from those drugs,” Lane says.

Adding apathy disorder to the psychiatry manual’s mental problems would introduce “the everyday vernacular sense of being indolent or lazy,” he says.

Relational disorder risks being so open-ended and broadly defined that almost every relationship could theoretically fall under it. “It could become simply a pattern of failed relationships owing to disturbances in the brain,” says Lane.

Task force and work group members have had to sign confidentiality agreements prohibiting them from divulging confidential information about the revision process. “The secrecy makes the scenario imaginable that (relational disorders) could simply appear in 2012 with a set of symptoms that would be mind-bogglingly expansive,” Lane says.

Arizona program puts blind man on path to self-sufficiency

From The Arizona Republic:

When Adam Coons (pictured) was a teenager in 1993, he was at a friend's house playing with a loaded gun and accidentally shot himself, resulting in blindness and hardship.

"I was being a stupid kid," Coons said. "But now I tell people that I don't care that I'm blind. It's more important that I'm alive."

Thanks to Arizona Department of Economic Security Business Enterprise Program, which offers legally blind people the training to become economically self-sufficient by operating food service facilities, Coons is now the manager of Phoenix Perks café in the Paradise Valley Community Center.

Until 2006, Coons was out of work and living on disability checks. Since then, he's been able to find work, but only through agencies that help the visually impaired.

"It's hard for blind folks," Coons said. "I just can't walk into a place and say that I want to be a dishwasher."

Coons said BEP gave him the business classes he needed. He started training with BEP two years ago and, after bidding for the position, took over the helm of Phoenix Perks on March 16.

Coons runs the register and manages the café. A sighted person works with him and deals with most of the food handling.

"Nobody should have a sloppy sandwich," which Coons said might happen if he were to fix one for a customer. Every now and then, he bumps up against the counter or fumbles with change, but Coons said BEP has improved his life.

"This has given me a lot more confidence," he said. "Before I didn't have goals."

One of those goals is to buy a house. His business goal is more customers for Phoenix Perks.

Phoenix Perks is part of a push by the city's Human Services Department to provide opportunities and services to a growing Baby Boomer demographic.

The Paradise Valley Community Center offers a selection of classes and programs ranging from legal rights, caregivers' support and ceramics, to re-careering and estate planning, all within a relaxed, café setting.

But as business ventures go, sometimes they need to be retooled.

When the café opened in October, the original business plan was to produce a high-end product with a Starbuck's-type branding, said Ed House, manager of Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired. BEP accepted a bid from Juanita Zavala, a blind vendor, whose business plan was most in line with that of BEP at the time.

"But the business plan wasn't appropriate for the facility," House said.

The high-end product wasn't producing results. Nobody was buying. So the shop closed for a couple of months, and it reopened under Coons' management.

The classes remain, the prices have gone down and sales have gone up, but House said it's too early to place judgment on Coons' performance.

Retiree Peggy Quinn is happy that Phoenix Perks is more affordable. She visits the community center on Bingo days and buys coffee at the café. She said it's good that the visually impaired have such an opportunity.

"Of course," Quinn said. "They can't just sit in the corner for the rest of their lives."

Nashville amputee's biotech company fits others with new bionic knee

From The Tennessean:

Matt Bulow (pictured) looks at a bionic leg, one of the latest developments in prosthetics for above the knee amputees, and smirks.

He didn’t have the benefit of modern technology when his right, lower leg was amputated at 14. Bulow had a clunky, wooden leg, and later a prosthesis of carbon fiber, that was lighter.

“It’s incredible,” he said nodding. “We’ve come a long way.”

Bulow, owner of Bulow BioTech Prosthetics in Nashville, has fitted the bionic-powered prosthesis to a soldier who lost his leg during an accident at Ft. Campbell in Clarksville. Fewer than 100 bionic knees were introduced to the U.S. in 2006, and a newer version is set for release in 2010.

Called the Power Knee and made by the Icelandic company Ossur, the bionic prosthesis replaces muscular activity by providing the power to flex and extend the knee. The newer version will cost under $100,000, which is the cost of the current model.

Surges in prosthetic technological advances happened in the last decade – and it’s not a coincidence that it’s during the Iraq war era. Engineers say funding for prosthetic research and interest in making progress spikes after wars.

The same pattern occurred during World War II and the Vietnam conflict, said Professor Michael Goldfarb, who runs Vanderbilt University’s Center for Intelligent Mechatronics.

“That trend goes back hundreds of years,” Goldfarb said. “The Army feels, rightfully so, that when people are serving the country and losing their limbs, they should support them as much as possible.”

It will be no different in the next several years with more technology powering the prosthetic industry, Goldfarb said. The National Institute of Health and the Army Research Office funds his group that is working on a bionic ankle and knee.

“There’s definitely more funding and interest in these technologies,” he said. “They have wanted to use power but the technology has not been there. Over the last decade there have been a lot of advances with electric motors, battery capabilities, microelectronics and computational power.”

The next generation of the bionic knee has already been built, said Tabi King, Ossur’s director of education. Army Lt. Col. Greg Gadson is the only person in the country to have Ossur’s bionic leg at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. Gadson is the highest-ranking army official to become an amputee, King said.

The new version of the Power Knee has artificial intelligence that realizes when it’s going up the stairs and adjusts itself. It weighs four pounds compared to 10 and has a smaller battery pack, said King.

Advocates say that while soldiers’ losing their limbs has raised the consciousness, there is another dilemma. Amputation is a frequent problem with diabetics as well. These two issues have combined to raise national concern about the broad need for healthcare, said Morgan Sheets, national advocacy director for the Amputee Coalition of America.

“There is a great deal of momentum about the larger debate of healthcare,” Sheets said. “The number of amputees coming back from the war does shed light to their plight. It’s exciting to have technology that enables amputees to fully function. But the challenge for a number of individuals is getting insurance coverage for the most basic devices let alone technological advances.”

Sheets said her group is introducing legislation state-by-state to help fight the cap on benefits because many amputees can’t afford some of the services.

Meanwhile, Bulow decided to open his business in 2006 to help patients who were in his situation. A malignant tumor was the cause of losing his leg but it didn’t stop Bulow from pursuing his goals. Bulow, who grew up in Cookeville, dreamed of playing professional sports either baseball or tennis. After the amputation, Bulow trained and qualified for the Paralympic Games, the equivalent of the Olympics.

He spoke of his inspirational story and worked for a prosthetic company. Bulow decided that with the advances in science he would open his own prosthetic business and work with a handful of patients.

“I feel I can make a difference,” he said. “I can connect with them. I know who and when to give a pat in the back. I know who needs a push.”

Virginia eyes future regulations on school restraints

From The Daily Press in Newport News, Va.:

At first glance, Virginia looked reasonably good in a scathing federal report on the use of restraints and seclusion rooms in public and private schools released this month by the Government Accountability Office.

In testimony before the U.S. House Education Committee, GAO officials said no federal laws govern the use of restraints and seclusion on students, but 17 states, including Virginia, had regulations. And none of the report's case studies originated in Virginia.

But Virginia's regulations govern only private institutions.

Julie Grimes, a state Department of Education spokeswoman, said there is no state law governing the use of restraints — methods used to immobilize or limit a student's ability to move — in the state's public elementary, middle and high schools. Fewer than one-third of the state's school districts have official rules related to restraints or have adopted state guidelines.

Among the districts with no School Board-adopted policies or regulations: Newport News, Poquoson, and Gloucester, Isle of Wight and Surry counties.

Restraints and seclusion rooms have been used by educators to control the behavior of students who are in danger of harming themselves or others in classrooms. But they are used most often with special-education students, typically those with emotional or behavioral disturbances, mental retardation or autism.

The GAO report shows thousands of allegations of abuse and misuse, with at least 20 documented deaths of such students.

Virginia's regulations for private schools require parental permission to use restraints and parent notification if restraints are used and stipulate that only trained personnel may use them. While there are no such laws for public schools, the state Education Department developed guidelines in 2005 to help districts develop policies.

But when the Department of Education checked on the progress toward such policies in April, only 38 districts had them. The rest have no official policies, though several use the state guidelines to guide action.

Michelle Mitchell, special-education director for Newport News Public Schools, has formed a committee to work on regulations after hearing from a resident.

"The woman knew of a child in another state who had died as a result of restraints," she said. "She was concerned."

Mitchell said Newport News has few students whose behavior would qualify for restraints, but teachers and staff are trained in crisis intervention tactics and avoid the use of restraints. The training program, Nonviolent Crisis Intervention, is used by several local districts.

"The goal is to de-escalate things so we don't have to use restraints. ... We know the student triggers, and we try to put behavior interventions in place," Mitchell said.

The district does not use seclusion at all, but does have "time-out" chairs in classrooms. No restraints are used for those, either.

Mitchell said she hopes having adopted regulations or guidelines for using restraints will mean that all employees who work with special-education students will have to follow them.