Synergy Between Two Movements: Paralympics and Disability (COSP19 Side Event)

Good morning, everyone.
You can use the interpretation service.
We have interpretation in English available on Channel one and Spanish on Channel four.
We would like to welcome you to the soci events on the Conference of States parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The event is synergy between two movements, Paralympics and Disability.
We appreciate the participation of representatives from member states, civil society organizations, persons with disabilities, entities from the sports world and partners that are here with us today.
This event has been organized by the permanent mission of Chile to the United Nations, as well as the America's Paralympic Committee and the CAF, the Bank for Development of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Before we start, we would like to thank the Permanent Mission of Chile for the organization of this event.
We would like to also thank the permanent ambassador of Chile to the United States, Mr.
Roberto Am Pueo for his presence.
We'd like to welcome him and give him the floor.
English interpretation is available on Channel one.
I'm right.
That'll change in January Testing the interpretation on English testing.
Is it working? Perfect.
We will continue with the opening remarks from the Ambassador Roberto.
We ask you to please turn your microphone on.
Okay.
Good morning.
Excellencies, distinguished representatives, delegates, representatives of organizations of persons with disabilities, civil society organizations and academic organizations.
It is an honor to welcome you to this side event organized by the permanent mission of Chile to the United Nations, as well as the America's Paralympic Committee and the Development Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean.
We are gathered in a particularly important moment, almost 20 years ago in December 2006, in this city, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of persons with disabilities.
Today, 20 years later, we see that the international community has progressed.
However, we continue to encounter challenges when it comes to translating the commitments into an effective implementation of the rights included in this convention.
The convention deeply transformed our understanding of disability.
It reminded us that inclusion is not just a generous concession, but a demand for human rights.
Taught us that accessibility is not an additional benefit, but an essential condition for the full participation of persons with disabilities.
Persons with disabilities are active agents of the development of our society and not just recipients of programs or policies.
In this context, it is particularly relevant to reflect on the conversions of two movements that have committed and provided the opportunity to expand opportunities and spaces for participation, the movement of rights for persons with disabilities and the Paralympic movement.
Over the last decades, both movements have driven forward deep social and cultural changes.
They have allowed us to continue to shed a light on the leadership and contributions of persons with disabilities in public life, promoting broader and more humane understanding of our societies with an inclusive perspective.
Chile has had the great privilege of experiencing and cultivating the transformative power of the conversion of this movement.
The Santiago 2023 Paralympic Games weren't just an experience, they allowed our country to reflect and collectively learn about the meaning of inclusion, accessibility, and equal opportunity.
The Paralympic Training Center is the first space in Chile that has been designed specifically for Paralympics.
And it allows us to understand that these commitments can have a lasting effect.
However, the most lasting legacy goes beyond infrastructure.
The greatest legacy is the cultural change that these processes bring about when it comes to establishing benchmarks, expectations, and opportunities for children and young people with disabilities.
We see the growing understanding that full and effective participation in social life, cultural life, and sports benefits all of society It allows our society to be better.
Inclusion starts when opportunities are no longer exceptional, but are part of the understanding of what is possible.
Chile has committed itself to this horizon.
The 2025 Youth Paralympics and the 2027 Chilean Games are a reflection of the commitment that we have taken on with responsibility and with the vision from our state.
Inclusive sports is not just a sectorial topic, but it is essential and a holistic perspective for sustainable human development.
Jose António as government seeks to consolidate sports as a tool for inclusion, social cohesion, and a manner to promote rights for everyone.
Chile's experience shows us that when sports are developed with a human perspective, with a focus on accessibility and inclusion, they can become a tool to truly implement the Convention on persons with disabilities.
The challenge that gathers us here is not just a matter of strengthening the Paralympics.
We are not here to only deepen the agenda for rights, but we must build a shared agenda, an agenda where sports, education, accessibility, health, employment, and citizen participation are all understood to be Dimensions of the same aspiration, we must guarantee the effective and full participation of persons with disabilities in all dimensions of life.
Behind every single athlete that has inspired us, beyond all barriers that have been taken down and all communities that have been transformed, there is a truth that I understand.
The Paralympics is where heroes come.
These heroes don't come by themselves.
They come together because societies open doors for them, and that is the effort that gathers us here.
The true legacy, the deep legacy of Paralympics are not just measured in medals.
They are measured in the progress that we see towards more inclusive, accessible societies with greater participation and more humane perspectives.
We hope that this dialogue allows us to strengthen our partnerships, share experiences, and foresee better ways of cooperating between governments, civil society organizations, persons with disabilities, and the Paralympic movement.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Ambassador, for your words and being here with us this morning.
We know that your schedule during the conference is particularly demanding and we understand that you must continue with your official commitments.
We sincerely appreciate your time and your support for this initiative.
So we're going to allow the ambassador to retire so that he can continue with his busy schedule.
Thank you so much.
Now, we invite you to watch a brief audio visual presentation that will allow us to explore the historical evolution and points of convergence between the disability rights movement and the Paralympic movement.
What do a fight for rights and a starting line have in common? What does a battle for a law for inclusion and a gold medal struggle have in common? During decades we've advanced in this movement, the Paralympic movement and the fight for people to have rights even with disabilities has progressed.
This has been advancing since World War two with injured veterans and civilians.
In 1944, doctor Ludwig Gutman the national spiral.
The interpreter is going to allow Oh, there it is.
Sport became competition, identity, community, and opportunity.
Since then, Paralympic sport has demonstrated to the world that disability does not limit excellence, discipline, or high performance.
While the Paralympic movement was gaining momentum in the sporting arena, another movement was growing through civil society organizations, disability advocacy groups, and political action.
For many years, disability was viewed primarily through medical, charitable, or welfare based perspectives.
In 1981, the United Nations proclaimed the International Year of Disabled Persons.
Then in 2006, a historic milestone was reached the adoption of the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
When the convention entered into force in 2008, it reinforced a profound shift in perspective from viewing persons with disabilities as recipients of assistance to recognizing them as full holders of rights.
For decades, these two movements advanced along parallel paths.
The Paralympic movement opened doors to visibility, pride, athletic achievement, and international recognition.
The disability rights movement opened doors to citizenship, accessibility, education, employment, independent living, and political participation.
However, there's one inevitable question.
What could be achieved if these movements collaborated in a more coordinated way? When they came together, the results can be powerful.
More inclusive public policies, more accessible sports systems, Stronger protection of athletes rights, more engaged communities and societies that not only celebrate achievement, but also ensure equal opportunities for all.
The question that brings us together today is, how do we move from advancing side by side to building together? This panel invites us to reflect, question, and propose solutions.
Because inclusion cannot be achieved by any one sector alone, it is built when sport, human rights, institutions, and the people with disabilities themselves work in a coordinated manner.
As we've seen, the history of both movements demonstrates that sport can serve as a powerful tool for promoting inclusion, participation, and the exercise of rights.
To further explore this reflection, we would like to invite Michelle Formante, Executive Director of the America's Paralympic Committee, to provide an introduction on the strategic role of Paralympic sport in the global agenda on disability, human rights, and development.
Michelle is a health professional with a master's degree in social policy and she's been working for more than 20 years in public policy, inclusion in Europe and in Latin America.
She currently leads the work of the America's Paralympic Committee to strengthen the Paralympic movement throughout the region.
Michelle, you have the floor.
Thank you so much.
Can you hear me? Okay.
Excellencys distinguished representatives and colleagues.
It's an honor to speak to you today to reflect on the role of Paralympic sport as a tool for inclusion and guaranteeing human rights at a global level, more than 1.3 billion people.
One of every six people live with some kind of disability in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This reality means 66000000-84 million people representing between 12% and 15% of the population of the region.
These figures are not merely statistics, they reflect deep structural gaps.
For example, persons with disabilities have lower levels of access to education and employment and higher rates of poverty.
In Latin America, one in every five households living in extreme poverty includes a person with a disability.
In our hemisphere, profound structural inequalities coexist with extraordinary cultural diversity, yet wherever Prapanamn sport gains a foothold, We observe impacts that extend far beyond the sporting arena.
For example, we reshape narratives, shifting from a charity based approach to a perspective grounded in rights and capabilities.
Sports and athletes are no longer seen as a charity based approach, and we start to look at them as a person who represents their country in the Paralympic Games.
It also strengthens inclusion systems by connecting education, health care, infrastructure, and above all, community participation.
It creates social role models and benchmarks which are essential for cultural transformation and the elimination of stigma against people with disabilities.
In the recent Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, the Americas had a significant presence and role.
Brazil sent more than 250 athletes to the games, making it one of the largest delegations.
The United States and we are represented here today by two Paralympic athletes here in the United States today.
They maintain their competitive leadership with 105 total medals and countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile continue expanding their athletic base and improving their performance.
Even in specific disciplines, there has been an increase in regional participation and a greater diversity of countries represented, reflecting the sustained growth of the Paralympic movement across and throughout the continent.
Nonetheless, there is still a critical paradox we must address.
Although people with disabilities represent approximately 16% of the world's population, their participation in physical activity or sports can be as much as 62% lower than that of people without disabilities.
This demonstrates that the challenge is not merely athletic but structural.
We have limited access, insufficient investment in grassroots sports, a lack of integration among disability, education, and health policies.
It is important to recognize that there are some important models, like we can talk about the Brazilian model, which I'll talk about a little bit, which has become a public policy infrastructure based on three fundamental pillars.
One, direct financing of athletes.
There's a program called Athletic Scholarship created in 2004, which gives direct economic support to Olympic and Paralympic athletes at all levels from their training until high performance games.
In the Paris Paralympic Games, Almost 98% of the Brazilian athletes receive that kind of state aid.
This evidence also shows that this financing has a direct impact on the athlete's performance because many athletes have to work and they have to train at the same time.
This is an aid, an economic aid from the country to allow these athletes to compete and reach high levels of performance.
This breaks a critical infrastructure problem, which was private financing and including this talent development since a young age.
Then we have a legal framework that links sports financing and legal protections.
We have a law called for inclusion of people with disability that guarantees their equal access to sports, education, and public life.
There's another law that is called Piva desire Alo that makes sure that there are standing resources for sports through lottery, income and designating a significant portion from this income to the Olympic and Paralympic Committee in Brazil.
This also turns Paralympic sports into a state policy sustained throughout time that does not depend on media or political cycles.
That makes such a huge difference.
In many of our Latin American countries, They only give out this economic aid based on the current government and not as a state policy.
Third of all, we have a program that is integrated from the grassroots to high performance.
Brazil has made great progress in programs that mix social and sports development professional programs that try to give these athletes greater access from a basic level all the way to high performance, recent incentives that expand their access to new disciplines and territories, promoting their autonomy and social inclusion, and there are also festivals.
To bring these people with disabilities to participate and be engaged in some kind of sport, which also strengthens the basis of the system.
This reflects a holistic approach of sports as a right and an educational tool and a way to foster development.
Throughout the Americas, we have valuable experiences in community programs that use sports as a rehabilitation tool and for reintegration in society, and this is extremely important.
The school initiatives as well that promote inclusion from an early age, and we're realizing that we have to start in the schools to promote inclusion from childhood on and so that these people can become agents of change in their territories, and we're developing that project with the CAF and doing a pilot project right now, we're piloting this new project.
Nonetheless, there are still critical challenges, limited sustained investment in grassroots programs, weak coordination between sports and disability policies, because in general, in the ministries, you have the inclusion officer or the disability officer and they're not linked to the other ministries.
We also have a lack of comparable data, so we're working with the CAF CAF to start measuring the impact, the true impact of those sports and those games and we also have the lack of a coordinated regional vision.
Today, the Americans have a unique opportunity.
We have evidence, data, athletes who serve as global role models and benchmarks, two of them are here with us today, and we have events that have demonstrated the power of sport in the Pan American Games in Lima.
We'll see them next year and the Paralympic Games in LA in 2028, the winter Paralympic Games in 2024 in Utah.
All of this has shown the power of sports as a tool for social inclusion throughout the region.
The Pan American Committee shows us that this is not an abstract thing, but rather This is something that is built as a daily practice on every playing field in every community and through every public policy, and in its ability to transform realities, it can and must serve as a pillar of a global agenda in which no one is left behind.
Let's seize this moment to advance an agenda in which sports are recognized as an essential component of inclusive development.
I would like to invite all of you to make this just the beginning or even a continuation of a dialogue that turns that recognition into concrete action.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Michelle.
Now we're going to start with the panel synergy between two movements, rights, sport, and inclusive development.
It's my honor to introduce you to these presenters who are leaders in their distinct movements.
First of all, I would like to introduce you to Juan De Govella, president of the Latin American Network of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities and their families or Rales in Spanish.
And he is one of the leading global advocates for the rights of persons with disabilities.
Thank you so much, Juan Adré, for being here today.
Then I'd like to introduce you to Julio Cesar Avile, President of the America's Paralympic Committee, a recognized sports leader who has driven the strengthening and growth of the Paralympic movement throughout the region.
Thank you so much, Mr.
President, Julio Cesar.
Juan Pablo Salzar, Director of Inclusion at the Bank of Development for Latin America and the Caribbean, a global disability rights advocate and a regional leader inclusion, development and sport.
Thank you so much, Juan Pablo, for being here today with us.
Steve Serio is a Paralympic athlete from the United States of America.
He has participated five times in the Paralympic Games and has won three gold medals and won bronze medal in wheelchair basketball.
Thanks so much, Steve, for being here with us today.
And then we have Katie Kubiak, an emerging star in international Paris swimming and one of the breakout athletes of the United States team at the 2025 World Paris Swimming Championships.
Thank you, Katie, for being here with us today.
And I'd like to start with you on this panel, Katie.
The Paralympic movement has been at the forefront of profound cultural transformations in our region and around the world.
So at what moment or processes do you believe have enabled the Paralympic movement to make a decisive contribution to changing social perceptions of disability and challenging historically entrenched stereotypes? The floor is yours.
There we go.
Perfect.
Can you hear me? Perfect.
I think inherently para port challenges the preconceived notions that are often placed on us as disabled people.
I think societally speaking, we've improved quite a bit with how we as disabled people are viewed and I think athletics has a lot to do with that.
My experience in particular, I know that When people know that I'm a professional athlete, I get treated quite a bit differently than when they don't.
I feel like that's a very interesting social experiment.
I think that that's a microcosm of not only the everyday experience, but then also it stems into the greater macrocosm of the impact that elite level competition can have on that movement as well, whether that be world championship competitions or things like the Paralympic Games.
Um, because those elite level competitions, whether they be on the Olympic side or the Paralympic side, are inevitably where we send the highest caliber talent that each of our countries have to compete at the highest level arenas.
And when we do that parallelly, it suggests that these athletes are demonstrating the highest levels of athleticism imaginable.
I think that switches the narrative from something of limitation to one of strength and capability, and empowerment.
As somebody who was born with my disability, but it was later onset, I had to contend with acquiring my disability over a period of time.
I had a period of time where I was more able bodied and then became disabled later in life, which meant that I dealt with a lot of internalized ableism because I saw the way that I was perceived in society and I saw those expectations and I grew up in a part of um Wisconsin that was a little bit smaller, so I wasn't always exposed to a bunch of other disabled people, especially not around my age.
I was very blessed in having very athletic role models, such as a former Paralympian, but I didn't really get to grow up in the world of Paralympic athletics.
Getting to bear witness to the Tokyo Paralympics was something that was very healing for me as even just a disabled person because I got to see the people who are now actually my team USA athletes, demonstrate how strong and powerful and capable they are in their disciplines.
That not only proved to me that I was capable of doing the same, but it jump started my desire to continue my career in athletic.
I think if it's capable of doing it for me, it's capable of changing the narrative for able bodied people as well.
I think too what's so powerful is this has become such a global movement.
I mean, there's 150 or NPCs that are competing now at the summer games, and when we've got that type of visibility on the scene, inevitably, there's going to be so many more people that are tuning in.
There's so many more athletes that have the potential to change these perceptions in their corners of the world.
When we're able to change those narratives globally, I think that it starts in this niche that is athletics, but it's going to send ripples through, um, other areas of society.
It begins with athletics, but then maybe it transforms into media and then media reaches out into the employment market, and then that reaches out into schools and communities, and then that reaches out into just society as a whole.
I think, yeah, sports is definitely a strong contender to have it start because when we can change the way that athletes are perceived and when we can show them as being strong and powerful and capable and multifaceted human beings, I think that completely changes the way that they're perceived in every other facet of society.
Thank you so much, Katie.
Your message is so clear and your strength is so clear, this driving force that you've mentioned.
And I'd like to ask you, where do you still see the major challenges today? Yeah.
From my perspective, um, I feel like we can always grow media representation.
I think that how we portray people through media is always going to be the greatest way that we can change perception.
As somebody who has a background in film and television and broadcast journalism, I have become very intimately aware of the power that storytelling and media has.
I think what's really special is that sports and storytelling are both very uniquely human disciplines in the sense that what you see is very raw human emotion.
You can't make it up, you don't write it.
What you see is what you get.
I think that when we can grow media representation around not only just disabled storytelling, but especially paraalmpic sport.
I think that we can completely revolutionize the way that disabled people are perceived and the way that society perceives them.
I think we've made a lot of improvement on that front.
I believe my numbers are correct, but double check this.
I think I saw that we saw an 84% improvement in the number of hours of coverage from the 2024 Paris games from the prior quad.
We had 15.4000000000 million or billion people that tuned into the games.
Check that number.
But regardless, it was a record.
Across the board, we saw record highs of people that were tuning in to the Palmpic Games.
That just shows that when we cover the games properly, people are interested.
People care to see these athletes compete at the highest level attainable.
They want to see the athletic feats that we're not only training for, but we're achieving.
I think that when we offer proper platforms and equitable platforms to cover these games and these events, including theraalmpic Games, but not ending at the Paralmpic Gams, whether it be world championships, whether it be Pan PACs or Pan AMS or any of those, I think that's when we start showing that the Paralympic movement is truly parallel to the Olympic movement, which is what that paparalympic really means.
I think that for me media coverage is definitely the biggest way that we can grow in proving that not only disabled people are worthy of it, but also that the Paralympic movement is just as impressive and should be just as respected as everything that the Olympic athletes are doing as well.
If you.
Thank you very much.
Well, I would like to say that in Santiago, 2023, when we look at the data and the results of participation and the spectators that were present, the Para Pan American games had four more percentage points of participation than the Pan American games.
That was a point of pride that we had more spectators join us at the Para Pan American Games than the Pan American game.
That was a great point of pride.
I just wanted to share that data in line with what Katie has said.
Let's move beyond the medals with Steve.
Yes.
The athletic success generates admiration and visibility, but it can also create an incomplete perception of inclusion.
From your experience, what are the risks of celebrating sporting success without simultaneously transforming the structural barriers that persons with disabilities continue to face in education, mobility, employment, and social participation? Can everybody hear me? Okay.
First, I just want to say thank you for allowing us to speak in front of you all here today.
I love this question because it has many touch points on my personal journey, and I'm very excited to share those with you all today.
I think that the Paralympic piece and especially success at the Paralympics is a really important piece of the puzzle when it comes to inclusion and the disability rights movement.
When you compete at the Paralympics, you don't just have this global platform to share your athleticism.
You have this global platform to share your story, both on and off the field of play.
One of the more inspiring pieces of being a Paralympic athlete are the times when people reach out to you saying that they connect to your story, not just your athleticism as someone growing up with a disability.
We don't want to ignore that piece of being a Paralympic athlete.
However, it's absolutely not the only piece.
To provide a little bit of background, I acquired my disability when I was 11 months old and I didn't start playing wheelchair basketball until I was 15.
And I grew up as a child with a disability as the child who had to go enter the back door through the gymnasium of my school because there was no ADA accessible ramp in the main entrance.
There was no athletic opportunities for me presented to me in the community that I grew up in because people didn't know about adaptive sports.
Transportation to and from school was relied on by this one main small school bus and if that broke down or if there was a problem with the ramp associated with it, I was unable to attend school that day.
I say these stories not to provide any criticism, but to highlight that this story is far too common for people with disabilities all across the world.
I get the chance to speak in front of many people in my career, and there's two messages that I always want people to take away from my story.
The first one is that as people with disabilities, we are living in a world that is not built for us.
Again, I don't offer that as a criticism.
I offer that as a way to identify the problem and an opportunity that we have a chance to rebuild this amazing world that we've created.
The second one is I've had a lot of success in my sport as a Paralympic athlete.
Um, being on top of the podium, hearing your national anthem with your friends and family and your teammates and everybody that helps you get to that moment is a truly special moment.
But the most impactful day of my life was not the day that I was able to bring home Paralympic gold medals for my country.
It was the day when I found wheelchair basketball.
So to highlight some of the risks that you talked about in your question, sporting success, it can create the illusion of success in the disability rights movement, but that's just an illusion.
Benefits may reach elite athletes that we've talked about, but it may not reach the broader disability community.
And when I think about my experience in the Paralympic movement, we always knew the dates of the Paralympics.
We always knew when the gold medal game was going to happen.
So we had a clear, distinct goal every four years.
It's not that way with the disability rights movement.
Creating an inclusive society is a collection of these small wins that each of us are working towards day in and day out.
I want to highlight those small wins because it can feel very small at times, but those small victories added up over a long period of time is what we need to create a more inclusive society.
And I end my talk by just saying that as someone who grew up with a disability living in a world that is not built for us, it can create the illusion that our disability is something that we have to hide from or be ashamed of.
I can't tell you how many times I felt other growing up with a disability.
But when I found the game of wheelchair basketball, I was able to shatter any limitations anyone would ever try to place upon me.
I became the athlete, the teammate, the partner, the leader I am today because I found this game of wheelchair basketball.
We have a lot of work to do to create a more inclusive society, but we will do better and we should do better in the future.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Steve.
I would like to now move to the next section of our panel to advance more when it comes to rights and leadership for decades, the disability rights movement has advanced an agenda centered on participation, autonomy, and citizenship.
From that perspective, how can the rights movement strengthen Paralympic sport between elite competition and ensure that persons with disabilities are leaders within both movements rather than merely beneficiaries or symbols? Good morning, all.
It is lovely to be able to share here with all of you representatives and delegates and thank you to our two athletes here.
Your storytelling has been fantastic in order to understand the rights movement.
We are now celebrating 20 years since the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was ratified and we see this in the video as well.
We see the struggle as it's led in the sports realm.
We see that There are no specific dates for this fight.
It is a daily fight.
This allows us to see greater inclusion in education, health, employment, inclusion across all of society.
We are not discussing specific dates here.
This is a continuous struggle in order for us to be included every single day and this inclusion continues to feed our movement for persons with disability and the sports movement is also nourished.
This is mutual nourishment for our movements.
In order to truly have real inclusion and for athletes to meet expectations, we need to change paradigms and attitudes.
These are some of the greatest hurdles that we experience.
This change of the society, this change of mindset is something that we need to have present always, as Steve mentioned, growing in a world that is not meant for us many times makes us feel like hiding.
But that's not truly what we have to do.
The movement for persons with disabilities continues to fight for real change.
The convention mentions our rights and we need to understand that the lives of persons with disabilities are not just composed of one right.
This is an identity that is cross cutting.
It involves sports, employment, and many dimensions of life.
Therefore, we must understand that this struggle is not just one for accessibility, but it is for the full enjoyment of all of our rights.
As Michelle noted, we saw the experience in Brazil.
In order for an athlete to reach peak performance, we need to ensure that all of these good practices are considered.
Direct financing allows athletes to focus on their performance and their daily living.
They don't just have to focus on continuing to struggle and find a job so that they can be an athlete.
Being an athlete is a job and the support from the government will allow this person to continue with their performance.
But we need to consider specifically women with disabilities and underrepresented groups.
What happens with those groups that are not addressed in the convention? What happens to people with disabilities, intellectual disabilities, people with psychosocial disabilities that many times are stigmatized in our society as well as other groups? We need to consider that the convention needs to expand.
We are leaving people behind, so we need to expand the convention so that no one is left behind.
As was mentioned, What we are achieving right now is historic when it comes to the gender perspective.
We see the triparthe coordination between the calf, the Briads and the America's Paralympic Committee.
We need to be a stronger voice and set an example for other regions.
Martin Luther King always said, I have a dream.
A dream where we can all sit at the same table.
Today, we are sitting here at the same table.
We are looking for opportunities to strengthen the platform for persons with disabilities in our region and their families.
Recognizing and celebrating these 20 years of the convention will also allow us to look towards the future and celebrate those milestones.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Juan Hill.
To hear from our next panelists now, we will hear from Juan Paolo.
For many years, sport was viewed as a separate topic separate from development agendas and today we see a different situation.
From a public policy and development perspective, what does it mean to build a common agenda linking sport accessibility, education, health, employment, and political participation? Thank you very much, dear Andrea.
I would like to start by thanking the permanent mission of Chile to the United Nations for co sponsoring this event.
Thank you to all of the participants and dear panelists.
This conversation is urgently needed.
I don't believe that we've really carried out this conversation in the last 20 years and we need to discuss this more.
I would like to highlight an uncomfortable reality.
Historically, there has been very deep seated trust between the movement of persons with disabilities and the movement for sports for persons with disabilities.
It's very difficult to explain the reason for this distrust.
Perhaps we have more serious people in the movement of persons with disabilities that think that maybe sports could or could not be mentioned.
Maybe those who focus on the sports movements are more focused on competitions and medals and think that when we start discussing rights, it's a topic of charity and not competition.
This is why much of the leadership that we've had during these last 20 years has not discussed this topic.
I believe that this has been catastrophic when it comes to the development of both movements.
I don't want to simplify this, of course.
There are probably deeper reasons for all of this.
They are two different languages in fact.
Perhaps we see that the work of activism is very different than the leadership needed when someone is in a leadership position in sports.
It's basically an Aramaic, someone speaking Aramaic and someone speaking modern Spanish, it's very difficult to have these two movements sit down at the table and truly converse.
But we need both movements and both movements can win.
The rights movement needs a platform and the sports movement needs a purpose.
This is where they come together.
In New York There's an average of 200,000 tourists every single day.
The World Cup is starting, so this number will increase drastically and no tourist is truly watching what we're doing right here.
No one turns a TV on to see my friend, Juan Hill and myself, even though we come well dressed and we're attractive.
They turn on the TV to watch Steve and Katie.
Katie told us about the data a little.
About 1 billion televisions that get turned on for the Paralympic Games.
The COSP would want 10% of that when it comes to people watching what we're doing here.
We need to use this to everyone's benefit.
If Steve and Katie are here sitting with us today, this means that they are at least curious.
They want to work on their identity as persons with disabilities.
They have at least some interest in understanding themselves as persons with disabilities and making the most of the platform that sports has given them to advance this agenda and further our message.
I'm sure that Steve and Katie are not the only athletes interested.
Most athletes with disabilities want to support the movement.
To change this reality, we have to work in leadership, in the rights movement, and in the sports movement.
This is why I would like to congratulate Juan Hill today in one way or another.
He is representing civil society organizations from the Americas, representing persons with disabilities.
I would like to also congratulate my friend Julio Avila.
He represents sports leadership in the Americas.
By accepting this invitation and being here in this event, it is a political message.
The time has come to build bridges and collaborate between both movements.
I hope that at a minimum, you leave this room having each other's WhatsApp information and you start to exchange messages and congratulate each other on your birthdays.
Andrea, We represent banks and development institutions.
What do we need to further these agendas? More than anything, we need data.
Technocrats and development banks need data that can be measured statistics.
My friend Juan Hill mentioned Martin Luther King.
My question for him is the following.
Could you tell me how many Muhammad Alis would equal one Martin Luther King if we are not able to quantify progress in sports and the way in which they allow us to advance the UN convention and the sustainable development goals.
Well, we need this.
All organizations must continue to further this work in order to obtain concrete data that can show the correlation between sports and the development of the rights of persons with disabilities as well as the sustainable development goals.
We are carrying out some of this work with UNESCO, with the International Paralympic Committee, as well as the America's Paralympic Committee.
We are currently developing a number of indicators so that we can measure How we are currently advancing in sports.
What does it mean if one country is doing a good job? What type of governance do they have? What type of financing do they provide? What type of accessibility do they have when it comes to school and community games, not just high performance games? These indicators will be public.
Everything that we are doing is currently open source, and we hope to have a pilot program ready and it'll be in Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Costa Rica.
So these will be the first four countries where we will be testing our indicators indicators that will allow us to measure how we are currently and correctly carrying out sports programs.
We will be able to compare apples and apples from one country to the next and understand how a country is performing, whether they are at the red level, yellow or green, and how we can turn the red lights into green lights.
So this is currently the task at hand.
Of course, we understand that we need to provide support to both movements.
This is why it is a great honor to be here today.
This is a conversation that is sorely needed.
It should have happened before, but we are doing this today.
Once again, I would like to congratulate the leadership from both movements.
Thank you for advancing this conversation.
Thank you as well to the government of Chile that has been launching this movement in a very coherent manner.
Everything that I've mentioned is based on the Santiago Roadmap.
This was a conference that Chile carried out with UNSCO and with the bank in November of last year where they discussed precisely this topic, the need for indicators, data, and building bridges between the two movements.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Juan.
That's right.
Measuring and comparing is such a challenge and we need to be able to work together as well as having a data center.
That's what collaboration means and for no one to fall behind to use Michelle's words a bit.
Now I would like to ask Mr.
Julio Cravila if we accept that no player or agent can move forward alone.
The challenge is to imagine new forms of cooperation.
Let's look ahead at the coming years.
What concrete partnerships should be built among Paralympic committees, organizations of persons with disabilities, governments? Universities, academia, civil society, in order to accelerate implementation of the CRPD Convention of Rights for People with Disabilities and expand the impact of inclusive sports.
Andrea, thank you so much.
I'd like to say hello in particular to everyone who's here today, to our para athletes from the United States, to Juan Juan Pablo.
Thank you for having this space today.
Thank you to the permanent commission of the ambassador of Chile and his team for holding this event.
This event is vitally important to join forces and show off what's being done.
To get to your question, Andrea, I feel that it's important to start working on those five issues all together and to create working groups and lines.
For example, if we're talking about the government, in some countries, we've seen that There are challenges with legislation, but you have the Convention of rights for people with disabilities and which are sometimes acquired, but those people are not always being reflected in the population of people with disabilities.
If we go to sports, we see that the convention has been capitalized on to create that legislation, which creates guarantees in the sporting arena and in other aspects or fields such as education, health, employment and We can make a team to capitalize on sporting legislation to include these other things, or in these other fields, we can include sports.
Because we see that in some countries, you need the presidents or head of state's goodwill to do this because we don't always have the legislation.
We need those tools so that we don't have to depend on the will of one leader or of the Olympic Committee or the sports ministry or the health ministry or labor ministries.
We need laws that give guarantees to persons with disabilities to be able to exercise and access their rights.
So If we talk about education and universities, Juan was saying that if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist.
I'm totally in agreement with that.
I'm talking about the UNESCO and I'm talking about other organizations that are measuring this.
In academia, they've already developed this sometimes, but we need to have partnerships with universities to facilitate this type of work and get that data so that we can see if we're on the right path and Sometimes we might need to change paths or keep going full steam ahead.
This will help us strengthen these processes, and I think that we also help strengthen their processes.
For Pan American sports, we see a very strong powerful tool and we need to give more visibility to the work carried out by the Paralympic committees and the athletes, and we need to capitalize on this platform to give more visibility and shed light on the work that civil society is doing to guarantee rights for people with disabilities or guarantee them opportunities, at least for them to compete and be involved in civil society.
I think we should capitalize on that platform to give them visibility.
Andrea, you were saying that in Chile, 2023, there were four percentage points higher of spectatorship for people watching the games.
So we should keep that in mind and see that civil society is engaging.
It wasn't just a four percentage point increase, but this increase can help give visibility to the work and make us visible.
It can create a platform.
We should create this platform where we can highlight the Paralympic athletes sporting capabilities and capabilities in civil societies to advance the rights of people with disabilities.
How do we show that with teamwork, we're creating those synergies Between civil society, people with disabilities, so as to build a society where those paradigms are broken.
We've seen a world where we're creating spaces.
We're not allowing ourselves to be marginalized.
We're creating spaces so that Paralympic athletes can create and show their talents and we're showing exactly in these spaces where Paralympic athletes can show up and show their talent and we have to start that platform not just for Paralympic athletes, but for other professional people with disabilities and sporting professionals in different areas such as accountability, communication, human rights.
This platform needs to work for all of these groups, and going to Andrea's point, we need to join our forces.
Those five organizations, government, civil society, academia, the Pan American movement need to start working towards the same goals and strengthening these processes that Juan Hill has mentioned, strengthening these processes that are being spearheaded by the CAF and that we're also leading in the Pan American Paralympic Committee movement, and we need to create these movements that the people with disabilities need to have visibility.
And show the strength of that union, of that synergy in this movement for the rights of people with disabilities and not just focusing on their rights, but also to build a society where we can belong, and it's not just about inclusion.
We're talking about a lack of tools that we need to guarantee our rights and to build a society where nobody is marginalized and where we're all included and participating.
Thank you so much, Mr.
President.
Well, we're coming on the close of this event, and I would like to thank our panelists for their valuable reflections and for sharing their experiences.
I think they all deserve a strong round of applause.
The remarks that you've shared with us today remind us that the Paralympic Movement and the disability rights movement share the same aspiration, expanding opportunities for participation, engagement, strengthening inclusion, and advancing towards more accessible, equitable societies that respect human rights.
They also leave us with a clear invitation to continue strengthening alliances among governments, international organizations, organizations of persons with disabilities, the Paralympic movement.
All of these key players are committed to the effective implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
We're so thankful for our panelists and everyone who has joined us here this morning.
To conclude this event, well, In the middle here, we have a small exposition, a small exhibit.
We have the replicate of the torch for the Paralympic Games, and we have a photo album from those games and the medals.
We'd love it if you came up to the center of the room to check out these memoirs from Santiago 2023.
We also have a few small gifts.
We would love for you to take these gifts home with you as souvenirs or memories of the 2023 games.
Thank you all, ladies and gentlemen.
Oh, yes.
Let's take a picture.
See