Teach Indigenous disability units to change attitudes, says Scott Avery

0 Comments read Disability, Indigenous, NDIS
Dr Scott Avery. Photo Credit: Supplied.

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 14.12.2021 (Hireup): It was not until his mid-teens that Scott Avery was diagnosed with profound hearing impairment. He now uses a Cochlear implant and tried accessing the NDIS a few years ago, but was bogged down by the complexities and peculiarities of the scheme.

“I had to complete a Hearing Handicap Audit and basically disable myself to prove how “handicapped” I was by my hearing. This was too demeaning so I gave up after a few months,” says Avery, who is from the Worimi country in New South Wales.

He says, “I just wanted to talk with an Aboriginal person for my eligibility assessment because the `medical model of disability’ thinks we are all broken. It’s a modus operandi of `we’ll just fix you’ for a lot of government systems. This has a negative impact on people’s social and emotional well-being.”

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‘Perfect storm’ created for food collapse, panel hears

0 Comments read Environment & Development, Health & Science
A vegetable seller in Hanoi, Vietnam. COVID-19 disruptions have worsened hunger and receded development gains. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 26.11.2021 (SciDev.Net): Hikes in oil prices, conflicts, emerging diseases, poor governance, and disruption in supply chains due to transportation blockages during the pandemic have come together to create a potentially devastating scenario for the global food system, a panel on food security heard.

“These have created a perfect storm for global food collapse”, Fan Shenggen, chair of the academy of global food economics and policy at China Agricultural University, told an online panel hosted by SciDev.Net and its parent organisation CABI on Thursday (25 November).

Globally, food prices are up nearly 33 per cent since the same period last year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s monthly food price index released on 2 September.

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Legal Identity for all a must

0 Comments read Environment & Development, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 24.11.2021 (SciDev.Net): A strong, universal, responsive civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system is critical for Asia Pacific countries to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that the most vulnerable have access to healthcare, immunisation and social welfare services.

This was highlighted in the Ministerial Declaration issued at the conclusion in Bangkok of the Second Ministerial Conference on CRVS (16—19 November) in Asia and the Pacific, organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Nearly 40 per cent of global deaths in 2020 were unregistered, according to a WHO report. And preliminary WHO estimates suggest that the total global excess mortality directly or indirectly attributable to COVID-19 amounts to 1.2 million more than the reported deaths in 2020.

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