Nearly six months ago, colourful billboards sprang up in strategic places around the island telling us that 2003 is the European Year of Disabled Persons. Since then, the same billboards were covered by political messages during the EU referendum and general election campaigns.

Activities have been organised to keep the issue of disability on the public agenda. The broadcast and print media have carried programmes and articles about disability. Fund-raising events have been organised to help organisations providing services to disabled persons.

All these initiatives help to change the still dominant paradigm of segregation to the emerging one of inclusion. Disabled persons, their needs and aspirations, are more visible than ever before.

A number of policies have been introduced in important areas like employment, education and building design to help create a more inclusive community. But how far have we moved forward to the situation described by Gary Bunch where we see "people with disabilities as people first, and their disabilities as simply one aspect of their lives"?

The media have to do more to foster the values of inclusion. On the whole, the media are still constructing stereotypes of disabled persons as objects of charity. They rarely create positive attitudes toward disabled persons.

Challenging accepted stereotypes

We need more media content that provides information about disabilities. This content should be aimed at modifying attitudes and behaviour toward disabled persons, helping able and disabled people be together in true community. Media content should help increase the comfort level between able and disabled persons.

This content should foster empathy with disabled people to facilitate accepting behaviour toward people with disabilities. We still lack media content where individuals with disabilities are depicted as well rounded characters with both strengths and needs. We still lack media content with an accurate and realistic presentation of facts related to disability. We still lack media content which is interesting and stimulating when it refers to persons with disabilities, as most of the time the media take up disability issues to treat them as "charitable acts toward those who are less fortunate than us".

I will repeat what I have said before: we have made difficult steps forward to treat the issue of disabled persons from a human rights perspective. But our mindset and general attitude are still heavily burdened with the tradition of the charity model. In our consciousness the dominant stereotype of the disabled person is still that of a victim. Most of us continue to articulate the issue of disabled persons within a humanitarian welfare discourse.

Mike Oliver, Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Greenwich. has written extensively about his own direct experience. He explains that "many disabled people are forced into the position of passive recipient of unwanted gifts or inappropriate services, for to refuse such 'generosity' would be to confirm the 'fact' that disabled people have not come to terms with their disability and have a 'chip on their shoulder'."

It is not easy to leave behind us the charity model and move on to the human rights model in disability issues. The charity model is a very powerful comfort zone. We find it difficult to move away from the dominant patronising ideology that associates disability with feelings of pity, fear and guilt and with situations of dependence, cure and care.

Schools should make all the difference

Education and training are the best means to empower disabled people to live as independently as possible and to enable them to assert their human rights. In these areas there is still a lot to be done. In the coming months, the Ministry of Education must do a lot more to equip the system and schools to become inclusive and have the necessary support systems to make them give a top quality educational experience to all the children who attend them.

Saviour Demicoli, chairman of the Statementing Moderating Panel which decides what kind of support must be given to disabled children in mainstream schools, concluded his annual report for 2001-2002 with these words: "It is hoped that the desired long-term directions embodied in the Inclusive Education Policy will be realised within the not so distant future. As things stand, at the moment, many of its objectives cannot be implemented due to lack of required personnel and resources. These include the above-mentioned Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators and a sufficient number of professionals such as psychologists, Specific Learning Difficulties personnel etc."

Months have passed since Mr Demicoli wrote these very valid words, but concrete steps still need to be taken to turn them into facts. At present we have five educational psychologists to handle the needs of 70,000 students in our primary and secondary schools! There are 90 students with impaired hearing who need specialised teachers to support them. The service for hearing-impaired children has been cut back severely as 76 children have only four teachers to help them in Malta while 14 children in Gozo have the support of two teachers.

There are only four teachers manning the Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) Centre in Floriana set up to support dyslexic children. There are over 300 students waiting to be assessed. Four teachers cannot cope with helping all the 7,000 dyslexic children in our primary and secondary schools.

Thousands of students are being deprived of their right to a good educational service that empowers them to move on in life. We must shape and implement a strategy to change our system and turn our schools into inclusive communities to make our children succeed, it is much easier to indulge in nice talk in seminars, to take part in media events and to put up colourful billboards.