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President's Foreword - 2009
Last Year when I addressed you I was appealing to the affiliates and the over fourteen thousand strong disabled community to work towards ensuring that their rights were not in any way compromised, I asked that we seek to develop a cadre of volunteers to work with the disabled community in developing programs that would allow both Government and commercial sector to recognize the tremendous abilities that lay unexploited within the disabled community. I closed my presentation with the following words from William Arthur, scholar, author and pastor; each one of these stipulations sends us a profound message.
DO MORE THAN…BELONG: PARTICIPATE
DO MORE THAN…BELIEVE: PRACTICE
DO MORE THAN…FORGIVE: FORGET
DO MORE THAN…BE FAIR: BE KIND
DO MORE THAN…DREAM: WORK
DO MORE THAN…CARE: HELP
Perhaps one of the regrettable things about organizations abled and disabled, is that even though they are created for positive interaction and socialization between members, too often this part of the structure becomes secondary because of the many pressing issues that face the members and committees set up to deal with business matters affecting organizations; leaving positive interaction, the most important facet of the grouping, to be overlooked, in many cases to the detriment of the parties involved.
The challenges which the disabled community faces are identical to the ones that confront our abled brothers and sisters. HEALTH, HOUSING, EDUCATION, JOB OPPORTUNITIES and TRANSPORTATION. The advocacy of the BCD throughout its existence has been centred around ensuring that the facilities being fashioned to deal with these issues, in both past and current economically challenges times did not see the disabled being placed on the back burner of progress and perhaps losing ground that Presidents, Boards and Affiliates of the past and present fought and were still fighting so tenaciously to gain.
But even though the BCD and affiliates work exceptionally hard to advocate for the above, there still seems to be a feeling of individualism among the participating groups. The concept of working together I have noted has on occasion been hampered by the desire to place disabilities into categories, whether hearing impaired, visually impaired, mobility challenged, recently disabled or born with a disability and believe me this has always taken me by surprise even though it emphasizes the very character of our humanness.
Barbados is currently at an economic crossroads, as a community we must now work together to ensure that we will achieve maximum benefits from the scarce resources at our disposal, now is no time to allow ego, whether lack of or over extended to hamper the progress that has been made over the thirty three years of our existence, UNITY will determine what LASTING gains we will achieve, neither local or international bodies have the time to be sidetracked by over embellished personal agendas, which can only lead to unnecessary divisions.
As we face this challenging future I ask you to seriously recognize the important role the disabled community has to play in the development of this country, and note that as was stated at the FAB Awards our regional and international disabled brothers and sisters, are about to play a significant part in our tourism industry, not because we are disabled, but because we are a travelling public who can make a difference.
I wish you well for the ensuing term and leave you with the theme that I truly believe in and that is:
David ‘joey’ Harper
President
 To read the whole document follow the links through "News"
 Annual Report 2004-2005
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