Perkins Celebrates as President Obama Signs UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

A student with disabilities from Indonesia

Perkins School for the Blind and Perkins International wishes to thank President Barack Obama for signing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on Friday, July 24, 2009. We celebrate the positive consequences this action will create for children all over the world who are blind, deafblind, or blind with multiple disabilities. Through the work of Perkins International in 63 countries, we have seen first hand the beneficial impact on people’s lives when governments work with blind and deafblind populations.

Every day 4.5 million children around the world do not attend school simply because they are blind. Worldwide, 45 million people live with some form of blindness, and hundreds of thousands more have limited vision.

President Obama’s signing the CRPD Convention on behalf of the people of the United States of America sends a clear message that the U.S. believes, as do all of us at Perkins, in the certainty that all children can learn and participate fully in society.

Massachusetts’ former governor, Ambassador Paul Cellucci, sits on Perkins’ International Advisory Board. He points to the effect of the U.S. engaging in the CRPD. “When officialdom denies opportunity to any group, we see wasted human potential. When governments engage in fostering opportunity for people who are visually impaired, we see hope, change, employment, productivity, and positive contributions.”

Mr. Obama’s action helps to demonstrate the convention’s principles of inherent human capability to all governments. Perkins President Steven Rothstein says, “The U.S. signing of the CRPD lends strength to the philosophy of possibility we share with students who are blind, their families, their teachers, and their communities. For Perkins partners worldwide, the participation of the U.S. in the CRPD reaffirms the international community’s commitment to the ability of every child to learn and the right of every child to be educated.”

Perkins School for the Blind, the nation’s first school for the visually impaired, provides education and services to help build productive, meaningful lives for more than 94,000 children and adults who are blind, deafblind or visually impaired with or without other disabilities in the U.S. and worldwide. Founded in 1829, Perkins pursues this mission on campus, in the community and around the world.