BANGKOK, Nov 13 – Thailand will disseminate its knowledge in online libraries and the skill of Thai massage to the blind worldwide at an international meeting which was launched here on Monday.
Monthian Buntan, a member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, said that Thai delegates will announce the country’s “TAB-Telephony 1414” technology giving the blind access to information.
TAB-Telephony 1414, an online library adapted from call centre and audio library concepts, will be presented as a gift to the blind in other countries by the Thailand Association of the Blind, Mr Monthian said.
He said that Thailand will promote the success of Thai traditional massage among the blind who have earned their living from the occupation as a career option.
The Thailand Association of the Blind, in cooperation with two other leading organisations for the blind, also announced their move to innovatively upgrade the quality of life of the unsighted and those who are otherwise disabled.
The announcement was made in two simultaneous meetings in Bangkok: the 8th General Assembly of the World Blind Union (WBU) and the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI).
Mr Monthian, the only blind senator in Thailand, chairs the WBU-ICEVI organising committee.
The forum is attended by participants from 120 countries. Issues being discussed in the meeting include care of the disabled when tsunamis struck Haiti and Japan, the right to read for Argentinian blind people, and the US as a world leader in reading technology.
Quoting a report of the World Health Organisation, Maryanne Diamond, chairman of the World Blind Union, said the blind and visually-impaired population throughout the world is 285 million, and the major task of the general assembly of the World Blind Union in Bangkok is to discuss proactive moves to upgrade the quality of life for those who have no eyesight.
She cited projects on the right to read, the right to work, and a handbook containing the United Nations’ proclamation on the rights of the disabled.
She also announced the “Tandem Ride” project which pairs normal and blind persons on two-seat bicycle journeys through 12 European and eight African countries, covering a distance of 2,500 kilometres.
It will open the world of the blind and allow them to learn new things on their journeys, Ms Diamond said.
