International day of disabled persons was started celebrating internationally on 3rd of December every year and promoted as an international observance by the United Nations from 1992. The day was greatly emphasized to celebrate it yearly in order to promote the awareness about the people with disabilities as well as to encourage them by implementing a lot of assistance in their real life to enhance their way of life and remove the social stigma towards them. Since 1992, it has been celebrated continuously every year till this year with a lot of success all over the world.
The vital purpose of this day celebration is to improve the understandings of the people worldwide towards the people with disability issues as well as get together to support them to improve their self-esteem, well-being and rights in the society. It also looks for to involve all the persons with disabilities in the society in each facet of life such as the political, economic, social and cultural. That’s why it is celebrated by the title of “International Day of Disabled Persons”. Every year celebration of the international day of disabled persons focuses on the different issues of the disabled persons all across the world.
International Day of Disabled Persons 2016
International day of disabled persons 2016 would fall at Saturday, on 3rd of December.
History of the International Day of Disabled Persons
The year 1981 was announced as the “International Year of Disabled Persons” by the United Nations General Assembly in the year 1976. It was planned to emphasize the rehabilitation, prevention, promotion and equalization of opportunities for the persons with disabilities at the international, regional and national levels.
The theme decided for the celebration of international year of disabled persons was “full participation and equality”, to aware the people about the rights of disabled persons for their equal development in the societies, to emphasize the well being living for them as equal to normal citizens, and to improve their socio-economic condition.
The years from 1983-1992 was declared as the “United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons” by the United Nations General Assembly in order to offer the time frame to the Governments and other organizations so that they could properly implement all the recommended activities.
Themes for Celebrating the International Day of Disabled Persons
The celebration of the international day of disabled persons require an effective theme in order to get implemented properly the rules and regulations in the society for the disabled person. Following themes are the year wise themes of the international day of disabled persons celebrations are listed below:
- The theme of the year 1998 was the “Arts, Culture and Independent Living”.
- The theme of the year 1999 was the “Accessibility for all for the new Millennium”.
- The theme of the year 2000 was the “Making information technologies work for all”.
- The theme of the year 2001 was the “Full participation and equality: The call for new approaches to assess progress and evaluate outcome”.
- The theme of the year 2002 was the “Independent Living and Sustainable Livelihoods”.
- The theme of the year 2003 was the “A Voice of our Own”.
- The theme of the year 2004 was the “Nothing about Us, Without Us”.
- The theme of the year 2005 was the “Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Action in Development”.
- The theme of the year 2006 was “E-Accessibility”.
- The theme of the year 2007 was the “Decent Work for Persons with Disabilities”.
- The theme of the year 2008 was the “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Dignity and justice for all of us”.
- The theme of the year 2009 was the “Making the MDGs Inclusive: Empowerment of persons with disabilities and their communities around the world”.
- The theme of the year 2010 was the “Keeping the promise: Mainstreaming disability in the Millennium Development Goals towards 2015 and beyond”.
- The theme of the year 2011 was the “Together for a better world for all: Including persons with disabilities in development”.
- The theme of the year 2012 was the “Removing barriers to create an inclusive and accessible society for all”.
- The theme of the year 2013 was “Break Barriers, Open Doors: for an inclusive society and development for all”.
- The theme of the year 2014 was “Sustainable Development: The Promise of Technology”.
- The theme of the year 2015 was “Inclusion matters: access and empowerment for people of all abilities”.
