Conference: Global Rights and Local Challenges: Disability, Inclusive Education, and Rural Environments

The Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School is pleased to present “Global Rights and Local Challenges,” a comparative symposium on disability rights.  A component of the Leitner Center’s Crowley Program in International Human Rights, which this year focused on disability rights in Rwanda, Global Rights and Local Challenges will highlight the backdrops of rural poverty and educational underdevelopment as barriers to inclusion and to education for persons with disabilities.

Global Rights and Local Challenges aims to connect scholars, stakeholders, and advocates in the field of disability rights and to create fruitful discussion about the unique obstacles that confront persons with disabilities in Rwanda and worldwide.  By connecting academic and advocacy communities—and by attracting an audience that is new to the area of disability rights—we hope to inspire unique solutions and engaging debate about the next steps in addressing the social and economic barriers at focus in this event.

Two interdisciplinary panels will serve as cornerstones of this symposium; both will explore the disability and poverty nexus, wherein disability and poverty lead to and accentuate each other in a pernicious cycle.  Panelists will use case studies from the United States and around the world to describe how rural environments and the need for overall educational development can hinder inclusive education for persons with disabilities.  In addition, a student photography exhibit will illustrate the social and economic obstacles that define disability in Rwanda and internationally.  Finally, the award-winning documentary In The Shadow of the Sun will further illuminate the social stigma that persons with disabilities face.  Taking the perspective of two individuals with albinism, it will demonstrate the role of social and economic barriers in separating them from education and their communities in Tanzania. 

This symposium is open to scholars, practitioners and the public.  

Participants will include, among others:

Shantha Rau Barriga, Disability Rights Program Director, Human Rights Watch

Madame Jeanne d’Arc Byaje, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Government of Rwanda to the United Nations

Musola Catherine Kaseketi, Founder/Filmmaker, Vilole Images Productions 

Anne Kelsey, Fellowship Attorney, Disability Rights Advocates

Dr. Sophie Mitra, Fordham University Department of Economics

Richard Mukaga, Program Manager, Cheshire Services Uganda 

3 CLE credits will be available free of charge to lawyers working in the non-profit and public interest sectors. All other lawyers will be required to pay $200 to receive CLE credit.  Fordham Law School alumni may pay a discounted rate of $100.  Please contact organizers for details and to arrange payment.

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In the Shadow of the Sun Trailer:

Brown Bag Lunch Series