There is a world-wide recognition that equal rights and opportunities for people with (and without) disabilities should be self-evident and safeguarded. In daily practice, however, much work remains to be done to improve conditions and opportunities for students and staff with disabilities.
What
The EAIE SIG on Disability Issues Worldwide likes to play an active part in this process, by creating an international forum within the EAIE to make optimal use of the network function for exchanging and sharing ideas, good practices and information and getting to know other people in more or less similar jobs and institutions.
With internationalisation becoming increasingly the important in HE institutions, neglect of this area can no longer be accepted, due to the importance of recognising the rights of students with disabilities within the day-to-day processes of international education.
Therefore DIW want to share information and best practices, but would also like to put pressure on policy makers and HE institutions to ensure that they engage with these concerns more actively. We want to work on an agenda that highlights the most urgent matters to be addressed.
Who
DIW will try to bridge the gap that exists between the people working in the disability field (e.g. the Disability Support Services) and people working in international education, by engaging disability workers in the EAIE and the SIG and at the same time make people working within international education more sensitive to the problems of disabled students and staff.
Contact
Contact person: Adele Browne, Executive Officer for European Programmes, University of Sussex, UK A.V.Browne@sussex.ac.uk
- Maritheresa F. Frain, PhD, Director, CIEE Study Center in Seville, Spain mfrain@ciee.org
- Rogier van der Wal, PhD, former director of handicap + studie, the Dutch Expert Centre for Studying with Disabilities, Utrecht definibus.rogier@gmail.com
- Femke ten Bloemendal, student exchange co-ordinator Faculty Humanities, University of Amsterdam f.tenbloemendal@uva.nl