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Inclusive Communities = Stronger Communities
GLOBAL REPORT ON ARTICLE 19: THE RIGHT TO LIVE AND BE INCLUDED IN THE COMMUNITY
Responding to Diversity
Inclusion International regions are mainly a response to
global geography. It is a potential strength that each
includes a diverse range of countries. Within countries too
there can be considerable diversity in people’s experience,
e.g. shaped by inequalities in income and the different
patterns of life in urban and rural settlements. Learning
from comparing and contrasting these different
perspectives we can identify some of the most important
structural, cultural, economic and historical factors which
are important in planning action to advance the principles
of Article 19 at different levels of aggregation (local,
national, regional, global). These are elaborated more fully
in what follows, especially Chapter 7, but we summarize
here four important themes for subsequent consideration.
‰ Family structure, culture and personal autonomy
Family is critical to the well-being of people with
intellectual disabilities but family structures vary
hugely, from the single parent or small nuclear family
common in economically rich countries to the large
extended families and indeed membership in local
clans which are still common, for example is some
rural parts of Africa. Alongside these structural
factors there are also differences in family
expectations e.g. whether and when (adult) children
should leave home and the family members’
responsibilities to each other. Another aspect of
culture relates to the basis on which people with
disability experience discrimination, e.g. from
traditional views about disability being a
punishment for wrong-doing or a condition which is
infectious, to the medically-inspired attention to the
person’s “deficits” as the cause of their problems. As
well in many parts of the world the concept that a
person with an intellectual disabilities has rights and
has the legal capacity to exercise those rights is not
understood or accepted. In turn there are widely