Akiko Fukuda, secretary-general of the World Federation of the Deafblind, pressed the international community at the United Nations this week to include the perspectives of the disabled when devising disaster-preparedness plans.
"Up to this point people with disabilities are the target of programs but from now on I think we need to change our minds," Fukuda, 37, told Kyodo News on Wednesday, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. "We could be an agent of change with our resource called disability."
The wheelchair-bound Fukuda, who is totally blind and deaf, participated in a press conference and was a panelist at the U.N. headquarters as part of the launch of a campaign to promote the inclusion of the disabled in reducing disaster risks.