Peparedness, Protection and Response for Persons With Disabilities in Times of Emergency (COSP19 Side Event)

Uh huh.
Good morning, everyone.
It is a pleasure being here.
I think we're one of the first side events of this CRPD on the 19th conference of the state parties of the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Good morning to whoever is here in the room and good morning to those who are watching us.
My name is Avital Mimron Rosenberg and I'm the counselor for Human Rights at the Israeli mission to the UN and I will be the moderator for today's event.
I'll just stop for one moment, 1 second.
Just wanted to make sure that the captioning is working as well, so we will ask the technical team to assist with us with that.
Just to start again, we have different accessibility measures here for this society event, captions in English should be provided on screen and we will make sure that they come up.
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Again, my name is Avital Rosenberg and I will be the moderator for today.
I have brown hair ish, and black rimmed glasses, and I'm wearing a dress with flowers on it.
It is really an honor to begin this event today.
Initial response to an emergency is what determines in most cases the extent of damage.
An effective and immediate response by those around even before the arrival of the emergency teams can considerably reduce the extent of damage, but that is not only one of the aspects.
Aligned with the CSP 19 sub theme on resilient societies and Article 11 of the CRPD, we will focus in this session on the crucial aspect of designing emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and continuity of service systems with disability inclusion in mind.
Leaning on practical experience, we will engage on how emergency systems are judged not only by the speed of their response, but their capacity to reach those who need mediation, accommodation, assistive technology, and continuity of care.
Now it is my honor to introduce Israel's Deputy Permanent representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Jonathan Miller, to deliver opening remarks.
Thank you, Avital and welcome all Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen and our colleagues who came all the way from Israel and from Austria to be with us today.
We appreciate it very much.
It is indeed a privilege for me to give these brief opening remarks here on this important discussion on protecting the rights of persons with disabilities in times of emergency.
Unfortunately, for Israel, this is not merely a policy discussion, it is a daily reality.
Over the past few years and especially since the events of October 7th and the ongoing security challenges facing our region, Israel has had to confront the complex and formidable challenge of ensuring that every person can access safety, information, services, and support during moments of crisis.
Just this week, we once again faced indiscriminate rocket fire launched against civilians from the Hots in Yemen, which demonstrated once again how emergency preparedness systems are tested in real time and why they must be accessible to all members of society, including persons with disabilities.
These realities underscore an important lesson.
Emergency preparedness is only effective when it is inclusive.
When a warning siren sounds, when communities are evacuated, when essential services are disrupted, persons with disabilities often face additional barriers that others may not even notice or even be aware of.
Access to information, transportation, shelters, assistive technologies, personal support networks, and continuity of care can become a matter of life and death.
This is why disability inclusion must not be treated as an afterthought.
It must be integrated into the design of emergency systems from the very beginning.
Israel has worked to strengthen accessible warning mechanisms, improve emergency preparedness planning, and enhance coordination between government agencies, local authorities, civil society organizations, and disability advocates.
We continue to learn from experience and from the expertise of persons with disabilities themselves whose voices are essential in shaping effective responses.
At the same time, we recognize that no country has all the answers and solutions.
The challenges posed by armed conflict, natural disasters, public health emergencies and humanitarian crisis are becoming increasingly complex.
This makes international cooperation and the sharing of best practices more important than ever.
The Convention on the Rights to Persons with Disabilities reminds us that protecting human rights does not stop during emergencies.
In fact, it becomes even more important.
Our commitment to equality, dignity, autonomy, and participation must remain constant, especially when circumstances are at their most difficult.
Allow me to conclude with one final thought.
The resilience of a society is not measured solely by how quickly it responds to a crisis.
It is measured by whether every member of that society can rely on protection, support, and dignity when they need it most.
Persons with disabilities are not simply recipients of assistance.
They are leaders, professionals, advocates, and partners whose knowledge and experience strengthen our collective preparedness and resilience.
I thank you and wish you us all a very productive and informative event.
Thank you very much, Avian.
Thank.
Thank you, Ambassador Miller, for your insightful remarks.
I am now pleased to introduce Mr.
Dan Rasal.
Mr.
Rasal has been the Commissioner for Equal Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the Ministry of Justice in Israel since 2021.
Prior to this role, Mr.
Rasal was an economic and strategic independent consultant to private and public sector Israeli and global corporations, government agencies and organizations in the field of finance, telecom, Internet, infrastructure, social programs, and persons with disabilities.
Mr.
Rasal, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Avital and welcome everyone.
Let me begin by thanking the permanent mission of Israel and Deputy Ambassador Miller and our partners, Beth I Shapiro and Zero Project International for convening this important conversation.
I am grateful to share this panel with such committed colleagues and I look forward to learning from each of you.
I want to start with a simple proposition, an emergency does not create inequality, it reveals it, it magnifies it.
When a warning sounds, when a building must be evacuated, when public services are disrupted, when a family must leave home quickly, when schools close, when transport stops, when information changes by the hour, every gap that exists in ordinary times becomes, in that moment, a question of safety, of dignity, and sometimes of survival.
That is why Article 11 of the Convention is not a peripheral provision.
It is a test.
It is a test of whether our commitment to equal rights holds when it is hardest to honor.
It is a test of whether accessibility has truly been built into our systems.
It is a test of whether people with disabilities are included not only when policy is set, but when pressure rises and decisions must be made quickly.
The Commission I lead was established under Israel's Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law of 1998.
We are an independent statutory body within the Ministry of Justice with a mandate to advance equality, prevent discrimination, promote accessibility, and support the full inclusion of persons with disabilities across all areas of life.
The Commission is also entrusted pursuant to a government resolution ratifying the convention with promoting and monitoring the implementation of the CRPD in Israel.
When we speak about emergencies, we speak not as observers, we speak as a body with statutory responsibility to ensure that the rights are real precisely when they are at most risk.
In practical terms, our role is to bring the rights based perspective into the systems of government legislation, regulation, accessibility, standards, public services, local authorities, complaints mechanisms, enforcement, public awareness, and cooperation with civil society and organizations of persons with disabilities.
Our task is to ask again and again, who is not reached, who is not being heard, whose support system is not being protected, with barrier in routine may become a danger in emergency.
I'll be candid with you.
Israel has had to learn many of these lessons under pressure, sometimes enormous pressure.
We're a society that has experienced recurring emergencies, including periods of armed conflict, in which large populations have had very little time to reach safety and in which support systems have been strained.
These experiences are living reminders of our obligations, not only to ourselves, but to the way we can contribute and share what we have learned in the hope that others will not have to learn in the same way.
We are not here to claim that every problem has been solved.
On the contrary, we are here because the reality of emergency has shown us both progress and gaps.
It has shown us what works and what fails, what must be built before the next crisis in order not to depend on improvisations of sorts.
Let me offer a few of those lessons.
The first concerns warning and information.
An emergency siren is an auditory signal.
For a person who is deaf or hard of hearing, a siren alone is not a warning at all.
For some persons with psychological disabilities, a siren may also trigger anxiety, distress, or other adverse reactions.
Emergency information that is delivered only by voice, only in writing, only in complex language, or only at a fast pace excludes people who are blind, people with international or cognitive disabilities, people who communicate in other ways, and people who don't, and people who need information in accessible digital formats.
We have learned that accessible alerting, visual, vibrating, plain language, multi channel, and available and accessible format is not a courtesy.
It is the difference between someone being reached and someone being left behind.
Information that is not accessible cannot be public information.
A warning that does not reach everyone is not a complete warning.
An instruction that cannot be understood or acted upon by the people who need it most is not an adequate emergency instruction.
The second lesson concerns evacuation and shelter.
When the time to reach protection is measured in seconds or minutes, a single inaccessible step, a shelter without a room to turn a wheelchair, a heavy door, a narrow entrance, inaccessible transportation, or an evacuation plan that assumes everyone can move unaided, each of these turns a general instruction into an impossible one.
Inclusive evacuation and accessible sheltering must be designed in advance, building by building community by community with the needs of persons with disabilities and the elderly at the center of the plan rather than an afterthought.
This requires more than goodwill.
It requires standards mapping, training, local coordination, accessible infrastructure, and clear responsibility.
It also requires recognizing that people with disabilities are not a single group with a single need.
Some people need physical accessibility, some need accessible communication, some need a support person, some need personal assistance, medication, equipment, a service animal, a familiar routine, or trauma enforced support.
A system that treats disability as one general category will miss the real operational needs on the ground.
The third and perhaps the most overlooked lesson concerns continuity of support and care.
Many people for many people, independence depends on a chain of daily support.
Personal assistance, medication, assistive technology, equipment, therapy, communication, support, routine, and trusted human contact.
Emergencies break that chain.
People are displaced, assistance cannot reach them, devices are left behind, services are interrupted, familiar environments disappear, families carry too much alone, children with disabilities lose educational and therapeutic continuity.
People who rely on community based support may suddenly find that that system around them has become fragmented.
A response that protects the body, but severe is the support of a person, relies to live on independently has not fully protected that person.
Continuity of services is therefore a core element of emergency response, which should be part of the initial planning and not an afterthought.
This point is central to our vision.
We want emergency systems that don't force people to choose between physical safety and autonomy.
We want systems that understand that support, accessibility, and dignity are not secondary concerns.
They are part of protection itself.
These lessons point to a principle that runs through all of our work and through the convention itself, nothing about us without us.
Persons with disabilities and their representative organizations are not only beneficiary of emergency planning, they are experts in it.
They know what their needs are and where a plan might fail.
They hold knowledge that no authority can generate on its own.
They understand barriers that may be invisible to planners.
They know when a service that appears available is in practice, unreachable.
When a person with disabilities sits at the table, when protocols are drafted, the protocols are better and sharper.
When they are consulted only after a crisis, we are merely auditing others mistakes.
Meaningful participation from the design stage onward is the single most reliable safeguard we know.
Inclusion in emergencies must mean more than protection.
It must mean leadership, representation, and shared authority in shaping the systems that affect people's lives.
I would add one further element that is easy to neglect and impossible to do without data.
We simply cannot plan to reach people we cannot reach through our systems.
This aggregated data, knowing who needs accessible altering.
Alertic who relies on continuous services, who will require assistance to evacuate and where gaps are likely to emerge is what allows preparedness to become protection.
Of course, privacy and dignity must be guarded carefully.
Data must never become a tool for control, stigma or exposure.
But the absence of data is not neutrality.
It is too often the reason someone is forgotten.
Let me turn then to what guides the commission's work in this field, our goals and our vision.
Our goal is straightforward to state and demanding to achieve that emergency systems, warning, evacuation, sheltering, and continuity of essential services are accessible and inclusive by design for every person in every locality before the next emergency, not during it.
Our objectives in pursuing that goal are clear and rely on five main points.
First, to embed disability inclusion into national preparedness frameworks rather than treating it as separate track.
Second, to work alongside emergency authorities, government ministries, and local authorities so that accessibility is built into emergency programs and protocols, infrastructure, communication systems, service delivery, and training.
Third, to insist on participation of persons with disabilities and their organizations at every stage, not as a symbolic gesture, but as a condition for effective planning.
Fourth, to strengthen the continuity of essential services so that persons with disabilities are not cut off from them.
And from the support that allows them to live with independence, dignity, and autonomy.
Fifth, to use data, public inquiries, field experience, and the commission's monitoring role to ensure accountability and to drive continuous improvement.
This is how we see our added value.
Emergency bodies know how to manage emergency operations.
Local authorities know the communities.
Civil society knows the field reality on the ground.
Persons with disabilities know the barriers and the solutions from experience.
The role of our commission is to connect these worlds, to ensure that the rationale of emergency management and the rationale of human rights do not run on parallel tracks but become one integrated system.
Because speed matters, but speed alone is not enough.
A system that responds quickly, but excludes people is not resilient.
A system that protects infrastructure, but loses people's independence is not inclusive.
A system that restores services, but leaves barriers in place has not recovered.
Our vision is this a society resilient enough that when the worst happens, no one's safety depends on whether the plan happened to remember them.
A society in which a person with a disability is not a category to be managed in crisis, but a full participant whose rights, autonomy, and dignity remain intact under the most difficult conditions.
Resilience, in our view, is not measured only by how fast the system responds.
It is measured by whether it reaches the person who needs mediation and accommodation, assistive technology, accessible information, personal assistance, or community of care.
Continuity of care and reaches all those as an equal.
This is why today's discussion matters.
It is not only about exchanging national experiences, it is about identifying what can be strengthened, scaled, and translated into practical standards for the global community.
We need to ask what works.
We need to ask what still fails.
We need to ask how to move from emergency improvisation or reaction to emergency preparedness.
We need to ask how Article 11 can become not only a legal obligation, but an operational reality.
I want to close by being honest about the limits of what any single state can claim to have solved.
We have made progress.
We have also seen in real emergency where we still fall short.
That is precisely why a forum like this matters to us.
We are here not only to share, but to learn from member states that have built accessible learning at a national scale, from civil society that has carried continuity of care through displacement, from organizations of persons with disabilities that have identified barriers long before institutions saw them and from every delegate who has found a workable answer to a problem we're still wrestling with.
Let me end with this invitation rather than a conclusion.
We are here to hear What has worked and what is still a challenge.
We want to know what should have been done differently if emergency systems were to be designed again.
The challenge Article 11 sets before is shared and the obligation to meet it is shared as well.
If we are willing to exchange not only our successes, but our hard lessons, we'll all be better prepared and more people will be reached when it matters most.
Thank you.
Thank.
Thank you, Mr.
Sal, for those insights and we look forward to also hearing you speak in this upcoming Thursday roundtable number three of the CSP entitled from Participation to Representation.
We will be there to hear you as well.
Now it is my pleasure to introduce our next speaker, Mr.
Michael Fembek, for some introductory remarks.
As a former business journalist, Mr.
Fembek initiated and developed Z project in 2008.
In July 2022, He joined the board of directors at ESSL Foundation in charge of strategy, international cooperation and communications.
He's also head of the Disability Thematic Network of Fila and leading European Association of Foundations.
I can say on a personal note that every Israeli NGO in this field that I have spoken to in the last four years, if they have won any prize in Zero project, they wear the badge with a lot of pride and it says a lot about your project.
So please, Michael.
Yeah.
Thank you for this kind introduction and thank you also for British Shapiro and partners to have me here today.
As mentioned, my name is Michel Fembek.
I'm start with a brief description of myself.
I'm a white man in my early mid 60s.
I'm wearing a gray suit, wearing a gray light gray shirt and have some gray hair, but apart from that, I still feel very fresh and agile.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, many of you know this zero project, so I'm starting with a really brief intro.
So for 15 years now we're running a global cross sectoral project that every year brings together thousands of persons and organization that jointly nominate, peer review, and select what we call innovative solutions and good practices and good policies.
And those that make it, those that are, as you said, most of the time also very proud of getting the award are then invited to present their projects and their innovations at the Syria Budget Conference in Vienna every year, every February, which has become a hub of of these movements and of this global community working together on this fundament, we have built a lot of other activities that the time is too short to talk about.
We have an annual cycle of topics.
So our four topics are education, employment, accessibility, independent living and political participation.
And let me interrupt my presentation with an advertisement for the current Zero Project nomination.
So currently the nomination is out.
So we are looking for Seal Project Awards 2027.
So if someone has an idea and knows about the project that should get an international award related to independent living politic participation or any type of technology, the time is now.
Here's my team that's undertaking the pictures and Tom, so these are also Seal project.
We are here also to answer questions if you want to know more about us.
I'm sitting here, why crisis response? What is the competence of the b in that with being part of these global networks, we realized the increasing importance of inclusive crisis response at our own conference at the COP.
It was an ever growing focus of presentations for a good reason.
The number of crisis is is growing man made crisis, natural meat crisis.
And then we also joined forces with Professor Michael Stein from Harvard Law School and says, let's put this in the heart of last year's research on inclusive crisis response and based on the project nominations that we received and with an outreach to our community asking them to also contribute, we brought together a report that I understand all of you have in front of you.
And in the second part of my intervention, I'm going to give you some results from the report.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Fembek, and we look forward to hear more from you during our panel.
I'm delighted to introduce Mr.
Amir Leer, Executive Director of Beth Izi Shapira.
Beth Iz Shapira is an Israeli organization that has been leading and innovating in the field of disabilities in Israel and around the world for over 45 years, championing equal opportunity, full community involvement, and improved quality of life for people with disabilities.
Mr.
Lerner, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Avitar for the kind intro.
It's an honor to be here with the guests, Ambassador, and of course, distinguished panelists.
There are a lot of connections between us, and we are also the proud winners of your prize from just this year on Inclusive dentistry and proud to be part of the scaling program that you are also running.
So why is this session so important? I feel also, just like you mentioned that we're living in a convergence of crises.
We have conflict and climate and disease and economic instability, and a lot of these are happening together in different countries around the world.
And as you mentioned, Israel is obviously going through this and learning as we go along.
And these aren't abstract challenges, excuse me.
They're reshaping the daily reality of people, especially people with disabilities and their families.
It's not an issue we can afford to treat in isolation.
It must be addressed at every level, the community level, the national level, the global level, and of course, the individual level.
Following October 7th, at Beta Shapiro, we initiated a study because like you said, data is essential.
And during the first months of the war, we collected data focusing not only on individual disabilities, but on the family as a whole ecosystem and how they are affected by war by conflict.
Of course, some of the findings confirm what we all intuitively know stress increases, vulnerability deepens.
You don't need research for that.
But our research now published and cited internationally goes further.
It shows a cascade effect where disruption in one system rapidly spreads across the entire family.
When education systems are interrupted, when services are reduced, when support frameworks weaken and the health system is overloaded, the burden does not stay contained.
It shifts to families, intensifies within the home and compounds over time.
And critically, because people with disabilities rely more heavily on these systems and often have fewer substitutes when they fail, they are disproportionately affected.
What we saw through families reflects a broader reality.
When systems that provide continuous holistic support are disrupted, the impact is not contained.
It deepens vulnerability across the lives of people with disabilities and their families.
Yet in times of crisis, there's a natural shift towards broad mass response, and too often, those who depend on these systems The most are the first to be overlooked.
This leads to a critical insight.
The stability and responsiveness of systems, education, welfare, community service are not secondary, they are central to resilience.
What we are seeing is not unique to Israel.
It reflects a broader global vulnerability, which is why alongside this research, we are working with international partners to identify best practices and to continue to contribute to a shared policy framework because fragmented responses will not meet systematic challenges.
We need even more alignment between NGOs and governments.
We need faster learning processes We need to prepare in advance, and unfortunately, we are not moving fast enough as crises just increase.
If there's one lesson from our work, it is this in times of crisis, systems do not just support people, they determine whether people with disabilities can cope at all.
And I look forward to sharing lessons from our work at Beta Shapiro and what we have done over the past three years and, of course, to learning from all people on this panel.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Lerner, for these introductory remarks and we also look forward to hearing you a little later on.
We are now moving to our expert panel which you have already met, a couple of our experts.
Each panelist will have 10 minutes at the end of which we will open up for questions from the room.
Our first panelist is actually not here with us today, Advocate Iolet Levine from the Commission for Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities.
She was unfortunately unable to be here with us and sent a prerecorded presentation.
Good morning.
It is an honor to speak with you today about this critical issue, ensuring the safety and well being of.
Is it possible to turn up the volume during emergencies.
My sincere apologies for not being intern with you.
Israel, unfortunately, has extensive experience in managing emergencies from the COVID 19 pandemic to ongoing security challenges.
These experiences have painfully exposed the reality.
Persons with disabilities are disproportionately affected during crisis.
Traditional emergency response model, often designed for the general population are frequently insufficient and inaccessible and can even be harmful when applied to persons with disabilities.
This leads to critical gaps in providing tailored, accessible, and continuous support, underscoring an urgent need for a fundamental model, one that is proactive, inclusive, and deeply rooted in human rights and dignity.
Recognizing this, our commission have been at the forefront of advocating for robust legislative and policy changes.
Over the past four years, Israel has Sorry about that.
We will start from the beginning.
Good morning.
It is an honor to speak with you today about this critical issue, ensuring the safety and well being of persons with disabilities during emergencies.
My sincere apologies for not being in the room with you.
Israel, unfortunately, has extensive experience in managing emergencies from the COVID 19 pandemic to ongoing security challenges.
These experiences have painfully exposed the reality.
Persons with disabilities are disproportionately affected during crisis.
Traditional emergency response model, often designed for the general population are frequently insufficient and inaccessible and can even be harmful when applied to persons with disabilities.
This leads to critical gaps in providing tailored, accessible, and continuous support, underscoring an urgent need for a fundamental model shift, one that is proactive, inclusive, and deeply rooted in human rights and dignity.
Recognizing this, our commission have been at the forefront of advocating for robust legislative and policy changes.
Over the past four years, Israel has enacted four crucial sets of regulations under the Equal Rights for persons with disabilities Law, specifically addressing emergency situations.
Currently, the final set of emergency regulations is under discussion in our Parliament.
These five sets of regulation have several key principles.
First is continuity of services.
A core principle is that person with disabilities must receive the same range of services during an emergency as they do in routine times.
Accessible adjusted emergency procedures.
Emergency procedures, including evacuation, must be accessible and adjusted for a person with disabilities.
This means accessible minibuses for evacuation and crucially accessible alternatives for emergency alarms for person with hearing disabilities.
Third, proactive preparedness through data.
Effective emergency response requires advanced preparation based on the specific needs of persons with disabilities.
This is where our data regulations come in.
The goal is to establish a comprehensive database of persons with disabilities to facilitate contact and assistance during emergencies.
Imagine a person with disability in a building who needs evacuation due to a fire.
How would the emergency services know to assist this person specifically without this information? The Ministry of Social Welfare will manage this database, sharing data periodically with local authorities so they can proactively reach out and provide aid.
This information includes relevant emergency needs, contact details, and details about the individual's social support network, whether someone lives with them, who can provide immediate assistance.
During COVID 19, for instance, we struggled to identify who needs food baskets.
This database aimed to solve such challenges in accordance with data protection legislation.
This database will soon be operative.
And finally, training and involvement of persons with disabilities.
This regulation emphasized the importance of training and involving persons with disabilities themselves in emergency preparedness and training of evacuation, for example.
This brings me to the concept of community supporter, which is the subject I wanted to discuss with you today.
This is not merely an administrative tile.
It is a dedicated professional role designed to be the human bridge between policy and practice.
This role is envisioned as an integral part of local social services, mainly within the municipal framework.
Whenever an emergency arises, the community Super role is not yet operational as well.
It is included in the draft relations I mentioned and hopefully will enter into force soon.
So what problem does this wall aim to solve? The emergency that have occurred in Israel since seven, 2023, highlighted a critical missing human element.
The challenge wasn't just knowing who needs help, but reaching them, understanding their immediate personalized needs and delivering tailored assistance.
There was a lack of structure official aid, often leaving individual to rely on civil society organization instead of the state.
This role aims to address the need for personalized support during crisis, ensuring the state takes responsibility and provides consistent funding for this vital function.
Let me elaborate some more on the core functions of the community supporter.
First is proactive identification and comprehensive needs assessment.
A key challenge is identifying person with disabilities, especially those not traditionally registered as such or lacking a strong support network.
Once a person with a disability is in the database, the community supporter initiates direct contact during an emergency to conduct personalized needs assessment.
This ensures that a person with disability needs for mobility aids, medications, communication devices, or personal care are met.
Second, direct support and tailored assistance.
The community supporters will provide direct tailored assistance, including guiding persons with disabilities to accessible shelters, assisting with evacuation, using suitable transportation, facilitating access to essential supplies like food and water, obtaining and delivering medication and medical equipment, and coordinating support for personal care.
Coordination and volunteer management.
The community supporter acts as a vital coordinator within the municipality, working closely with social workers, emergency services, and managing volunteers.
They prioritize requests to ensure efficient and appropriate responses.
And finally, bridging the gap and ensuring continuity of care.
Ultimately, they will bridge the gap between macro level data and micro level individual needs, translating the regulations into tangible lifesaving support.
This role is guided by principle of personalized approach, dignity and privacy, empowerment, and the continuity of care.
The main idea is to ensure continuity of services for routine times into emergencies.
Our role as a commission involved not only contributing to the drafting of the regulations, but also advocating for the inclusion and robust definition of the community support of role.
And of course, this model was developed in consultation with persons with disabilities as well as DPOs in accordance with the COPD principle, nothing about us without us.
Our key advocacy points include mandatory establishment.
We insist on a permanent statutory requirement for this role across the country with individuals deployed in the municipalities on the day of an emergency.
Staffing ratios.
For instance, the idea that's currently on the table is that there will be one community supporter for every 100 person with disabilities that are included in the local database.
Comprehensive training for the community supporters covering disability awareness, accessible communication, crisis intervention, data management, and coordination.
This training must be ongoing during routine times as well as during emergencies.
Sustainable government funding.
This is a crucial point.
Pilot programs showed immense value, but also challenges with temporary funding.
We recommend permanent government funding to ensure stability, attract professionals for this role and enable proactive preparation.
Finally, integration with existing systems.
The role must be fully integrated into local social services and emergency response framework to ensure a unified and efficient response.
The model of the community supporter, as we are developing and advocating for in Israel, holds profound implications that extend far beyond Israel.
The challenges faced by persons with disabilities in emergencies are universal.
Therefore, the human centered solution we develop can serve as a valuable proposal for other countries offering a tangible framework to enhance emergency preparedness in accordance with the COPD.
To conclude, the community supporter is more than just a role.
It is a commitment to human dignity, a testament to our collective responsibility and a beacon of hope for person with disabilities facing the uncertainties of emergencies.
We as a commission in Israel, work to ensure that in any future crisis, no person with disabilities will be left behind.
We encourage other member states to do the same.
Thank you.
Good morning.
It is an honor to speak with you today about this critical ensuring.
So we are happy we were able to hear from Aalet even though she is not here with us today.
Our next panelist is Mr.
Fembek, and we look forward from hearing the extensive experience and knowledge that Project Zero has.
The floor is yours.
So I introduced the making of the report to you already, and in my intervention, I will first give you some highlights and learnings from the report.
And in the second part, I will give you some concrete examples of good practices that we collected globally.
The report is available as an accessible PDF on our website, so it can easily also be shared and distributed.
So here are some key learnings from the report.
And actually, it reflects very much to what my fellow panelists already mentioned.
So I think there's a common ground.
There are learnings that people working in practice can share.
And so the first learning is there is something there to learn from.
It's not improvising and starting from scratch.
Actually, there are good practices around to learn from.
Um, Learning number one, disability inclusion is a test of societal resilience.
It was already mentioned by my fellow panelists.
If only part of the community can be supported and saved, then this is the opposite of what societal resilience means.
So this is also reflected in several of the comments and of the descriptions in the report.
Second, crisis expose structural inequality.
So it's not only the misfunction of the system when it comes to crisis.
It's a misfunction also when it comes to other types of inequality.
So sometimes the roots are deeper than simply when it comes to crisis and responses to crisis.
Um, Third, inclusive response improves safety for everyone.
So this is not only about specifically creating interventions and training and guides for people with disabilities, actually, it's about making all planning, all guidance, all trainings, all measures more available and accessible for everyone.
Creating, for example, technology that works for everyone using technology that works for everyone.
Fourth, exclusion is a design failure, not an inevitable outcome.
So there, as mentioned already in my beginning, it's not supposed to happen.
It's not there are ways to do that.
It's a failure in design.
It's not inevitable.
Fifth, practical, inclusive solutions already exist, was already mentioned, so there is a lot out there and there's a lot to learn from that already exists.
It's simply there.
And I think this community here in the room also understands that main decision makers are those that work in governments on interventions are those large international NGOs that come as the first responders.
So they should be the people that um should know about the existing models, and they should be advocated to understand that there are solutions out there and it's not something out of the ordinary and impossible to do with, which is what we learned this off my reaction.
This can't be done, and how should we do that? Actually, there are people who know how to do it.
What was already also mentioned was working with a people and NGOs on the ground having data available and also creating accessibility in its broadest sense are the game changers to make crisis interventions inclusive.
Locally led models deliver better results.
So this comes with almost every article in the report.
You have to work with people on the ground.
You have to work with NGOs on the ground.
You have to work with DPOs who better understand who only understand the situation and also understand what needs to be done.
Everything that simply comes from outside, top down, usually runs into big troubles when it comes to actually creating support.
And a final learning is the real gap is implementation, not innovation.
This runs contrary to what BSS your project usually do.
We look for innovations.
In this case, it's not being the most innovative.
It's about looking things that really work on the ground.
And as mentioned, there are projects and solutions that exist that work and have a proven track record.
So I'm moving now to some examples.
Okay.
Before I do that, there is an extension to the topic of crisis response, which is more than often overlooked, and we did not overlook it in the report because we had a very inspiring person with us right from the beginning who then also guided us through the whole process of making the report.
It's Professor Michael Stein, who is with us.
He just joined us.
He's sitting over there for those who don't know him.
So he was one of the inspiring people and one of the people who took us through the whole process.
And there are also some excellent comments on him how uh crisis also relates to climate change.
So the connection is more than often overlooked, on the other hand, obvious with increasing heat and with increasing drought.
These crises are usually not in mainstream media, but people still lose their livelihood and the situation, especially of people with disabilities in cities when it gets hotter and hotter is tremendously laborious than people without disabilities, and Professor Stein contributed substantially to the report on that subject.
There's a city in Japan that acts in many ways as an example to other cities in Japan when it comes to being more inclusive and more accessible.
It's the city of Paipu and they also have many emergency preparedness protocols developed and also practicing them.
So there's a lot to learn from Beipu.
This is, as one might imagine, from Japan, very professional and very down to earth at the same time.
It was already mentioned all these inclusive interventions will not really work if there is no data available on the situations of people with disabilities, who they are, where they are, everything that comes with it, the needed demography of people with disabilities, and there are also models around that do an excellent job and can be seen as blueprints on how to collect data.
There's one that we selected from Vietnam.
Working with organizations of people with disabilities on the ground in humanitarian action is crucial.
It seems obvious, but obviously it's not happening in most of the cases, there are these international crisis intervention NGOs coming in.
They have their systems, they have the funding, and if there is no preparedness, if they have never worked together, usually they don't start in the case of an immediate crisis or when an earthquake already happened or a flood already happened.
So these international organizations use their own structures and sometimes more than often ignore the offerings and the support that OBDs on the ground would be able to offer.
So there are models.
This is one from Light for the World from Burkina Fass, but there are others as well where this is tested and trained and where in the case of an emergency, the large scale international NGOs are working with OBDs on the ground and you basically get the best of both systems for support.
Local communities have to be part of the response of an inclusive crisis response that works.
In this case, this is a model from Indonesia.
It's not the DPO providing the support.
It's the DPO getting all the knowledge and all the expertise from people on the ground together.
So in this case, they act as a kind of a veer to make all the available knowledge work in the case of intervention.
So these DPO sees themselves as a kind of intermediate between people with disabilities on the ground, their support network, and then NGOs and government agencies coming in.
As you all know, Indonesia is very prone, especially to earthquakes and tsunamis.
So this is all based also on experience.
There's also a very good report coming from an UN agency from UN DRR Harvard makes the city crisis inclusive.
So this is also a highly recommendable publication.
And we not only show, of course, good practices and good solutions, we have also some information that help people who want to do more on a more generic way.
So we have, for example, collected how to respond to count arguments, and there are many counting arguments on the ground when it comes to implementing crisis response measures.
So there's also a guide, for example, on responding to country arguments in the report.
Yeah.
With this, I'm concluding my intervention.
I'm, of course, happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
It was very interesting and I think what I take with me is saying the exclusion is a design failure and really how we can work and see how we can, this is what we're doing here today at the event to see how we can appropriately plan with inclusion in mind.
So thank you for that.
Our next panelist is Amir Leon.
The floor is yours.
Thank you very much.
I'll open also by saying that as an organization, Betz Shapiro is also very fortunate to do a lot of work with Professor Stein and to have you with us on our board and thank you for joining us also in this session here in the audience.
Betsy works on the ground in the field with people with disabilities all time through crisis as well.
What I want to share with you now is just two examples of lessons that we have learned from what we're doing and what we do and The first one is reaching out.
As Avital sorry mentioned in her presentation, knowing doesn't mean reaching.
So one key lesson we learned that in crisis, those who need help the most are the least likely to ask for it, and hotlines don't work.
People don't call up a hotline.
Families are overwhelmed, displaced, exhausted.
Many just can't access services even when they do exist.
So we shifted very quickly when crisis started October 7th from waiting for people to come to actively finding them.
Reached out to families, for example, living in the Tivut, a village close to the area of conflict, brought them to our center more in the center of Israel, first of all, just to provide some respite, getting the children and the families out of that area and giving them a day of rest.
And then onto that, we could provide therapies and structured support.
Without this proactive approach, many, and they said that to us all the time, would have remained isolated at home without going outside at all and without any care.
We send them the buses, we brought them to us.
In another case, just a small example, one of our professionals in the Arab society in Israel reached out to all our contacts one by one.
By the way, the ratio of one to 100 is about what works for us as well.
Among them was a mother of four, including a child with autism.
The call came by chance completely during a siren warning of incoming missiles.
The mother was alone and had to take all her children to the closest shelter, managing their fear and resistance while experiencing the same distress herself.
The mother didn't know where to begin.
She had with her our volunteer on the line.
And through real time guidance and support, she was able to regain control in a moment of a crisis and to be present for her children.
We also reached out to evacuees in hotels, creating multisensory environments designed to reduce anxiety and worked and instructed evacuees themselves how to use these rooms and how to get help from them in their daily routines.
The key lesson for us is that reaching out restores connection, it restores control, it restores agency, and systems can prepare for this, as has been mentioned previously.
We need to know the people with disabilities in our communities, know how to reach them, and have trained staff and even better trained volunteers ready to initiate contact and not wait for it, and that aligns completely with the initiative of community support being promoted by government.
So that's the first lesson, reaching out, and the second one is training.
Crisis places enormous pressure on families and professionals alike.
And we developed training programs and modules in two key areas.
The first one is in the area of communication.
And more specifically, we developed a set of tools and guidelines for communicating difficult and life changing information, how to communicate bitter news, how to communicate the death of a loved one, how to prepare for going to a funeral.
For people with intellectual disabilities, we've done this in ways that are clear, supportive, adaptive, and adapted to different levels of understanding.
This is an area that has been systematically addressed or not been addressed in this way, particularly.
We have a toolkit built on structured communication models, specifically adapted disability contexts and translated into practical guidance for real life situations.
These include communication cards, short videos, and anything that can help in multiple languages, Hebrew, Arabic, and English that are available for anybody to access from anywhere in the world and being further developed all the time as we prepare because the next crisis will come.
All of these models are developed together with people with disabilities, ensuring that the tools reflect real needs, real understanding, and real life contexts.
As you said, Dan, nothing about us without us.
That is the first area of training that we have addressed.
The second area of training is, of course, dealing and coping with stress.
We developed and delivered targeted training for families of people with disabilities in situations of acute uncertainty in partnership with local authorities and the Ministry of welfare.
These were structured practical sessions designed to provide immediate tools.
We worked on differentiated formats, separate sessions for parents of children and for parents of adults and for adults and for people with disabilities, recognizing that needs and realities differ.
The focus is always on concrete application.
This isn't academic work.
How to maintain stability at home in a constantly changing reality, how to create a sense of safety under conditions of uncertainty, how to establish clear emotional anchors for the person with a disability and for the family as a whole.
And we also addressed ongoing stress conditions.
How to manage stress not as a onetime event, but as a continuous situation, how to sustain routines when systems around the family are disrupted and how to support communication and emotional regulations under pressure.
These sessions were designed to be accessible, inclusive, sensitive, and immediately applicable because in crisis, families, like I said, do not need theory and academics.
They need tools they can use at that particular moment.
These trainings were delivered to professionals, families, community actors across multiple formats and integrated into existing local systems to ensure maximum reach because we started with reaching out and accessibility.
Training is not an added layer of response.
It is part of the response itself, and it is something also that we can prepare in advance and keep for the future.
At Beates Shapiro, we work to develop, test, and refine these models together with people with disabilities so they can inform broader systems.
Following this panel now, we will share a short video example of this approach, one that was widely distributed to people with disabilities across Israel, demonstrating how these tools can be translated into accessible, practical guidance at scale.
The question is not whether another crisis will come, but whether next time our systems will be ready to include those who need them most.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I think it is a good time to really share that video because I find it very practical tips.
Hi.
I'm Benny Hosme from Betz Shapiro.
My name is Saka and I'm a student at Beth Ese Inclusive University.
We want to talk about coping tools for people with disabilities during times of crisis and how our families can help.
These times are complicated for everyone.
It shakes up our reality and forces us to adjust to our lives.
It is extra challenging for people with disabilities.
The stress is exemplified from the lack of information, limitations in getting around, lack of accessibility to protected spaces and shelters, changes in family and community dynamics and the lack of availability of people who provide support.
Creating a routine in times of emergency is a crucial tool to help people with disabilities and their families cope.
I want to share my personal experience.
During normal times, routine helps during times of crisis.
It's also important to have a routine.
Here are five helpful tips.
Tip number one.
Speak up and share.
Speak to people about your needs and how you feel.
Do not keep it inside.
Tip number two, limit your screen time.
It is not healthy to watch the news all day long.
When you do consume information, try to get the real facts and don't listen to rubbish.
Tip number three, if you genuinely live on your own and you need to move back with your family during this time, it is important to carve out your own personal space and private time for yourself.
Tip number four, boredom is the enemy.
If you're working less hours than usual, use your free time for doing good, give back to the community, be active or learn something new.
Lastly, tip number five, do not be alone.
Surround yourself with friends and family.
If you cannot be together in person, talk to them on the phone, Zoom, or text as much as possible.
I hope these tips are helpful to you and your family with hopes for peace and quiet times for all.
We'll make it through.
I I really love the practical tips in this video.
I want to start, we'll open up for questions from the floor, but I think something that really went through all the speeches here is trainings as being part of the response itself.
I wanted to see if maybe, Michael, if you had something to add about that element of training because that's really the ability of country of an organization to be able to uh, prepare, not only prepare, understand what the needs will be, and also train in advance before it even happens.
So have you seen this happen around the world and from your experience, can you share? Maybe two thoughts or insights that I think I learned from working on this report.
One is, it was mentioned in already somehow, but I think to mention this very clearly.
Many crises also create new types of disabilities physically, but also when it comes to mental health, and this is sometimes not taken care enough in preparations.
I think what you're doing in Israel is exemplary.
So all these PTSD work, this is really important.
And the second thought, training, especially when people are moving.
People are getting into other countries.
People are in refugee situations.
Training has also to include the receiving countries or the receiving communities, which is also often overlooked.
We have a situation in Austria with refugees from Ukraine and especial refugees with disabilities coming from Ukraine was quite an issue.
So there's a good example.
This is why I'm knowing about this where it worked.
So there was a really strong deaf community coming from Ukraine to Austria and imagine you're deaf with Ukrainian language, Ukrainian sign language, and you're coming to Austria, you don't speak the language and you don't nobody speaks your sign language.
Hard work to do then.
This might also be included in planning when it comes to not only with your local community, think also what happens if the crisis really hits and who are stakeholders that you should also consider.
I'm happy to open up for questions from the room.
Sure.
Monique.
Monique Beadle with Jerusalem Institute of Justice.
I want to thank the Israeli Mission for organizing this very timely event and the panelists.
Just to make a note that in Israel, there are certain crises that have become quite predictable, the 92nd run to shelter for someone with mobility challenges, for a person with a mobility related disability.
Has become a predictable crisis, and we have been advocating very relentlessly for the expansion of underground and accessible shelters, especially overnight accommodations for elderly people and people with disabilities.
We were pleased when the Jerusalem municipality opened up an underground shelter called La Batua, which provides some caregiving capacity as well.
Um, but we want to see more improvement on this front again, because this emergency has become so routine, this particular challenge.
So if any panelists have any expertise, again, with appreciation for this event.
Thank you, Dan.
Thank you for the question.
Those particular issues are actually many of them, if not the vast majority of them are known to us.
We work closely with municipalities, all of them, the Ministry of Interior, Mr.
Anim about those particular issues, those particular challenges.
There as you might imagine, there are many parameters involved, many specific unique issues to every unique case.
Many of them do come to our attention.
We do whatever possible, in our power and in our authority, working with, you know, other government agencies, other, I guess, entities within the Ministry of Justice to make sure those gaps are known and taken care of.
But we will always like to know more about what we don't know, obviously.
And, you know, that's, like I said, and like my colleagues added, we will never reach a perfect state of, you know, a complete set of solutions to any potential issue.
This is why we do what we do to find solutions ahead of time and as much less improvisations as necessary.
But we do want to be aware of all the things that are potentially could become problems.
I think we'll only have time for just a couple more questions.
So, I see my colleague from Uzbekistan and behind you, I also see a lady holding up her hand.
So please, yeah.
Excellencies, dear colleagues.
First of all, please allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Ilarrgbuov.
I am the DPR of Uzbekistan.
At the outset, we would like to thank Israel for organizing this timely and important event.
I don't have a question, but I have a short intervention with your permission.
Emergencies test not only the strength of institutions, but also the inclusiveness of our societies.
Response system cannot be considered effective if it fails to reach persons with disabilities, older persons or others who may require accessible information, assistive technology, reasonable accommodation, or continuity of care.
Uzbekistan, this issue is closely linked to the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of persons with disabilities, including Article 11, which calls on states to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies.
In this context, Uzbekstan initiative, which led to the adoption by the UNJ of the resolution proclaiming the International Day in memory of the victims of earthquakes is a practical contribution to strengthening global awareness, preparedness, and resilience.
Our approach is based on a simple principle persons with disabilities should not be seen only as a beneficiaries of emergency response.
They must be recognized as active participants in planning, preparedness, response and recovery.
The knowledge and lived experience help to make emergency systems more practical, more accessible, and more effective.
In the context of emergencies, three areas are particularly important.
First, early warning and public information must be accessible to all, including persons with visual, hearing, intellectual, or psychosocial disabilities.
Second, evacuation, sheltering and recovery plans must take into account mobility, communication, health, and support needs.
Third, essential services should continue during and after emergencies, including access to assistive devices, medicines, rehabilitation, and personal support.
We also believe that better data is essential, Deseggregated and reliable data helps identify who may be at risk, where support is needed most, and how emergency response can be improved.
Uzbek Stan stands ready to further strengthen cooperation with member states, the United Nations system, and civil society to promote disability inclusive emergency preparedness and response.
In conclusion, protecting persons with disabilities in times of emergency is not only a humanitarian duty.
It is a matter of rights, dignity and resilience for society as a whole.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
This was a very, um Inspiring.
Yeah, definitely.
I think the resolution for victims of earthquakes and what you mentioned now in your statement will also be an opportunity for us to work together on this issue.
Thank you for that.
Our last question will be from the lady sitting in the back row with the jacket.
You can press the button in front of you.
Perhaps she can be assisted by someone sitting next to her.
Thank you.
Please if you can keep it brief because we will need to finish up in a few minutes.
Thank you so much.
Yes.
I think something very important was said before about knowing who the persons with disabilities in the community are.
I was wondering how you do that because we thought about this before to ensure that the emergency services have this knowledge, who is in a building and who may need assistance.
But then there's always the question with protection of data, and of course, disability related data is sensitible information or sensitive information.
So how do you do that? I can try to address that briefly.
Amir from Beat Shapiro.
I think one of the ways to do that is when it's community based and not government based.
When a community based organization collects data, I think there's a lot of trust communities as organizations, we have to abide by all the regulations on data privacy.
You create more of a relationship with people with disabilities within your community, a relationship of trust and openness where we can collect that data.
The idea is to do that ahead of time and not because during crisis, it's difficult to get that data.
But if you're consistent throughout normal times, then it's possible.
I think, Dan, did you have something brief to say about that in addition? I think Amir's answer is pretty much sums what I was about to say, I connect to this.
We're happy to have further discussion after the event.
Sadly, we will have to conclude now as this room will be used for another event short after.
I want to thank our speakers today from Israel, from Austria, from local and far, we were able to have a perspective, both of member states and also civil society.
I think that's a great way to demonstrate really that whole of community response.
Yeah, we will be right outside if there are any other questions or things you wanted to ask.
Thank you so much for joining us, and we will see you next year.