youth in Central, Western, Eastern and Southern African Union_Organisations_Associations of the blind

African Youth Petition

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We the representatives of the youth in Central, Western, Eastern and Southern African Union/Organisations/Associations of the blind having gone through an intensive three-day training and appreciating work of AFUB towards promoting the youth agenda are:

  1. Concerned that the AFUB constitution has not established a youth wing or a youth department in the AFUB constitution;
  2. Worried of the fact that some member organisations of blind and partially sighted do not allow new leadership and democratic process;
  3. Further concerned that some member organizations do not constitutionally recognize a youth wing;

We therefore, petition AFUB board and AFUB 9th General Assembly:

  1. That AFUB Board discusses and considers the need to establish a Youth Wing of AFUB and tables a memorandum for constitutional amendment at the AFUB General Assembly to that effect;
  2. That the assembly considers to constitutionally established youth wing of AFUB;
  3. That the national organizations that do not have youth wings should as a matter of urgency, be encouraged to establish one;
  4. That democratic practices in leadership transition should be encouraged;
  5. That emergence of new leaders should be encouraged;
  6. That the unions should be encouraged to strengthen the youth activities in the unions;
  7. That the national members should be encouraged to introduce initiatives of interest to the young people to encourage them to be members.
AFUB Youth Conference Held in Nairobi, Kenya

AFUB Youth Conference Held in Nairobi, Kenya

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In line with AFUB ‘s objective of strengthening the self-awareness of blind and partially sighted persons and to develop sense of responsibility, one of AFUB efforts is to build the capacity of women and youth as self-advocates and to exercise self-determination and self-representation. In view of this, AFUB organized Youth’s workshop and trained them on Human Rights / CRPD/African Disability Protocol as well as the Sustainable Development Goals from 9th-11th April, 2019. Opportunity was used to discuss on how to establish AFUB Youth Committee and they came out with their action plan. In addition, there were discussions on how to use sporting activities as a tool for advocacy and for demonstrating the potentials of blind and partially sighted persons.

The main objective of the workshop was to prepare the Youth to engage with the board to establish Youth Committee for AFUB and improved capacity of the youth committee within AFUB to achieve its mandate more effectively.

a person each was selected from each of the AFUB geographical sub-regions attended the workshop. However, North Africa representative was not able to attend due to unavoidable circumstances at the Eleventh hour. Representatives from the Swedish Association of the Visually Impaired (SRF) who are knowledgeable on youth and sporting programmes and some selected AFUB staff members were present, these are:

  • Central Africa representative: Ms. N’levo N’zokafouka Solene Sophia Tania-Congo Brazzaville
  • East Africa representative: Ms. Sikudhani Vaiolet Sanga-Tanzania
  • Southern Africa representative: Ms. Esther Yanjanani Mbite-Malawi
  • West Africa representative: Ms. Nina Efedi Okoroafor-Ghana
  • Eveline Angonwi-Women chair, Cameroon, Yaoundé represented the board.
  • two SRF representatives; Ms. Rania Walid Mohamed and Aniina Liisa Ragna Karlsdottir-Sweden

The deliberations of the conference were in English and French with available simultaneous interpretation facilities.

The youth’s workshop considered training and introduction on Human Rights instruments such as:

  • The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD),
  • The African Disability Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
  • The sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030)
  • Discussions on how to use sporting activities in Africa as a tool for advocacy and for exhibiting the potentials of blind and partially sighted persons in Africa.
  • Training on AFUB policy on communication,
  • Training on Gender mainstreaming.

At the end of the three-day interruptions and discussions, the conference achieved the following immediate results: 

  • The Youth delegates developed their action plan and they were responsible for those plans.
  • The Youth commenced using different platforms for communication and sharing of information among themselves and their region, especially progress of their action plans.
  • The delegates have a better understanding of the key international and regional disability legislative instruments including UNCRPD, African Disability Protocol [ADP]
  • Identified common sporting activities that can be jointly organized for advocacy purpose amongst the regional bodies of AFUB.
  • Exchanged experiences and information between the Youth committee and the SRF representatives and discussed the way forward.
  • Delegates plan to drive the establishment of youth committee of AFUB as part of AFUB’s political structure.
  • Participants learned and shared from each other’s experience on youth related work.
  • Participants gained a better understanding on human and disability rights.
  • discussed how to use technology and communication skills as well as sports as tools for advocacy.

At the end of the forum, the youth agreed to file a petition to the general assembly on issues such as leadership in the unions, absence of established youth wings, the voice of women and youth in the society which is not heard. In view of this, the delegates agreed to influence their organizations to submit a proposal on the establishment of a youth wing or a youth department in the AFUB constitution by July. Only proposals from members who have paid their membership dues will be considered. They therefore came out with a declaration called “Nairobi Youth Declaration of AFUB”, which called the AFUB Board and General Assembly to support the establishment of Youth Committee within AFUB political structure.

ishmael zhoi

Message from the President

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Dear Colleagues, Members and Partners 

African Union of the Blind (AFUB) and its wider membership reflects on the experiences and challenges for the previous year 2020. In this edition, AFUB, its members and stakeholders will identify strategies of surviving alongside the COVID-19 pandemic and prioritise the ratifications of the protocol on human and people’s rights on the rights of persons with disabilities in Africa, the Marrakesh treaty implementation and our inclusion in fighting COVID 19 pandemic together with other civil society players around the world. 

Due to insufficient information on partially blinded persons, adequate and effective measures have not been fully adopted by African members states to ensure that blind and partially sighted persons exercise their full rights and dignity on an equal basis with others to matters related to health care education and livelihoods inclusion to all programs and projects being implemented on the African continent.

 AFUB thematic areas, throughout the year 2021, will mobilize resources, advocate for inclusive policies and promote the theory of community practice as a rights-based model in order to engage public and political will to bring about change. Various challenges disrupted the way people live including blind and partially sighted persons in Africa, some of the noted immediate effect were based on their movement, access to healthcare, causing significant loss of lives.

 AFUB and its members expects the African Union and its member states’ response to Covid-19 to promote universal access to health care for all groups of people inclusive of blind and partial sighted persons.  Furthermore, AFUB and its members call upon African governments to put in place models of health delivery and funding for health, as well as wider issues around equitable healthcare which are disability friendly. This year AFUB will work with its members to strategically influence state and non state actors on inclusion and hereby encourage all our national members to be active at local level and share their innovation on tackling the matter with the AFUB secretariat for wider dissemination and sharing.

Your resilience to the pandemic and other social forces is very much appreciated. Stay safe, mask up, keeping your distance and practising good hygiene at all times.

Mr. Ishmael Zhou

AFUB PRESIDENT

zhoi

AFUB President Mr. I. Zhou – AFUB statement for Human Rights Day 2020

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AFUB President(Mr. Ishmael Zhou) On Thursday 10th December 2020, AFUB joins the rest of the world in observing Human Rights Day under the theme: Recover Better – Stand Up for Human Rights.

This year’s theme relates to the COVID-19 pandemic and focuses on the need to build back better by ensuring that Human Rights are central to recovery efforts. “We will reach our common global goals only if we are able to create equal opportunities for all, address the failures exposed and exploited by COVID-19, and apply human rights standards to tackle entrenched, systematic, and intergenerational inequalities, exclusion and discrimination. 10 December is an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of human rights in re-building the world we want, the need for global solidarity as well as our interconnectedness and shared humanity” (UN).

As advocates of persons who are blind and partially sighted and in keeping with our main priority, which is promoting full participation, equal opportunities and protecting the human rights of our members, we at AFUB have joined a number of partners including the World Blind Union, International Disability Alliance (IDA), Norwegian Association of the Blind and partially sighted (NABP), Swedish Association of the visually impaired persons (SRF) and all organisations of persons with disabilities to advocate for inclusive and accessible response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Together we have developed global initiatives with a number of stakeholders working to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities.

AFUB takes this opportunity to reinforce UN’s call to:

  • End of discrimination of any kind: Structural discrimination and racism have fuelled the COVID-19 crisis. Equality and non-discrimination are core requirements for a post-COVID world. AFUB calls upon the African Union and its blocks to influence barrier free public policies and practices governing employment, education, health, sports and recreation including other related human rights of blind and partially sighted persons in Africa 
  • Encourage participation and solidarity: We are all in this together. From individuals to governments, from civil society and grass-roots communities to the private sector, everyone has a role in building a post-COVID world that is better for present and future generations. We need to ensure the voices of the most affected and vulnerable inform the recovery efforts.
  • Promote sustainable development: We need sustainable development for people and planet. Human rights, the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement are the cornerstone of a recovery that leaves no one behind


To “build back better“, we emphasize the need for inclusion of persons with disabilities, especially those who are blind and partially sighted, in the recovery process. This includes; ensuring that the rights enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) are prioritized; continuing to work towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); working in consultation with organizations representing persons with disabilities in decision making, development or changing of legislation or policies; and implementing inclusive COVID-19 mitigation actions so that no one is left behind.

We stand in solidarity with the UN and its partners in its call to “Stand up for human rights” as we strive to recover from this pandemic and to build a better, more inclusive and resilient society.

AFUB calls upon All African states to ratify The African Disability Protocol (ADP), and put an end to continued human rights violation, social exclusion and prejudice suffered by persons with disabilities in Africa.

AFUB President, Mr. Ishmael Zhou.

AFUB’s Message on International Women’s Day, 8th March 2019

AFUB’s Message on International Women’s Day, 8th March 2019

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“I can do this job eyes closed”. This statement is the boasting of an individual who masters his or her work. On the occasion of the 2019 International Women’s Day, I am proud to attribute this
claim to all women with visual impairment around Africa. With our environment generally not adapted
to our deficiency, our daily activities are a big challenge.

We therefore have to be smart and innovative in the way we do our work.

The theme of the UN Women for International Women’s Day 2019– “Think equal, build smart and innovate for change”, affirms our day to day efforts to contribute to the development of our
communities. Nevertheless, the problem is that, very few people understand and even acknowledge this
fact.

Our mission therefore, is to raise awareness on this and ensure that every woman with visual impairment sees herself as an expert who can do her job with her eyes closed in order to instil confidence around her for equal thinking. Paradigms have to shift in our favour. We need an inclusive environment which includes women, more so, women with disabilities.

As we celebrate this day, let us keep in mind that our deficiency has placed us a little above the rest and
not below. This would help endow us with the confidence to give our needed contribution in political
participation, public and family life as well as in the community and in the development of our nation.

Long live the AFUB Women’s Committee, Long live AFUB.

God bless Africa.

Madam Angonwi Nongne Eveline

AFUB Vice President;
Chairperson of AFUB Women’s Committee

Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa

Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa

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CONSIDERING that Article 66 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights provides for special protocols or agreements, if necessary, to supplement the provisions of the African Charter, and that the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity meeting in its Thirty-first Ordinary Session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in June 1995, endorsed by resolution AHG/Res.240 (XXXI) the recommendation of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to elaborate a Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa; 

Le Kenya Ratifie Le Protocole Africain Sur Le Handicap (Adp)

Le Kenya Ratifie Le Protocole Africain Sur Le Handicap (Adp)

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Le Kenya fait partie des trois états qui ont ratifié le Protocole Africain sur les Personnes Handicapées en plus du Mali et du Rwanda. La secrétaire du Cabinet des affaires étrangères, Raychelle Omamo, a déposé deux instruments d’adhésion à l’UA en février 2022 ; la Charte africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples relative aux droits des personnes âgées en Afrique vise à protéger les droits des personnes âgées et la Charte Africaine des Droits de l’homme et des Peuples relative aux Droits des Personnes Handicapées en Afrique qui vise à fournir un contexte africain pour Droits des Personnes Handicapées.

Dans une brève déclaration publiée  à  Addis-Abeba, en éthiopie, le Ministère des Affaires Etrangères a déclaré que;

“En déposant les instruments, le Kenya renforce son soutien à l’aspiration de l’Union Africaine qui vise une Afrique de bonne gouvernance, de démocratie et de respect des droits de l’homme, de l’État de droit et une expression de l’engagement du Kenya à adhérer aux lois internationales”,

La ratification de l’ADP est une étape importante dans l’incorporation de ses dispositions dans la législation nationale pour la protection des personnes handicapées en Afrique. Cela incitera également d’autres états africains à revoir leurs constitutions qui, dans de nombreux cas, excluent des questions critiques telles que le handicap en tant que motif interdit dans la disposition sur la discrimination et à adopter une législation nationale spécifique au handicap qui protégera globalement les droits des personnes handicapées. 

Bernice Otieno

Chargé de la mobilisation de ressources et Communication

UAFA

Africa Day

African Day

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Happy Africa day to all persons who are blind and partially sighted. As we reflect on the founding principles of the organisation of African Unity. AFUB and it’s associates celebrates the birth of the organisation of African Unity and the unity that has prevailed and remained the corner stone of all Africans. As AFUB we remain committed to the integration of the blindness agenda and it’s integration in the agenda 2063. May the good Lord continue to bless Africa and all its people for abundant lives and prosperity as a continent and as a people. Long live Africa, long live AFUB.