A social welfare group held a conference yesterday to promote its "independent living program" aimed at helping physically disabled people become more independent in their daily lives.
Lin Chun-chieh (
Disadvantaged people receive help from "personal assistants" in the program, she said, adding that she preferred not to use the word "caregivers" because disabled people's freedom to decide what they want to do was more clearly expressed in the term "assistants."
offering help
In a video clip showed to the symposium, assistants were shown offering help when disabled people asked for it; otherwise they would merely follow their lead.
According to Lin, who also suffers from the illness, people with disabilities are usually over-protected by their families and therefore cannot learn and grow by taking risks and making mistakes.
She said, however, the program, which originated in the US and Japan, gives people the opportunity to be responsible for what happens to them and be able to participate in a range of normal social activities.
`we are the same'
"We are the same as other people. We need to be treated equally, be respected and be allowed to blend into society," she said.
The program started in the US in the 1970s and began in Japan in the 1980s, she said, adding that it has become the focus of the fight for welfare rights for people with disabilities in several countries.
The program also includes helping people with disabilities learn how to manage their finances, how to cook, how to manage their life and what to do when going out, she said.
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
Restarting the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant would take up to 18 months, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today. Kuo was answering questions during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where legislators are considering amendments to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條) amid concerns about the consequences of the Pingtung County reactor’s decommissioning scheduled for May 17. Its decommissioning is to mark the end of Taiwan’s nuclear power production. However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of existing
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
RSS