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FOR PRESS 31 October 1978
HANDICAPPED PERSON OF THE YEAR AWARD
I am honoured to have been asked to present the first
Handicapped Person of the Year Award. This is an important
award for many reasons but above all, it is an important
award because by giving public recognition to the
achievement of the first winner of the Award it focusses
not so much on the han~ licap but on the capacity the
capacity to overcome difficulty, the capacity to
achieve, the capacity to make a useful contribution to
society. It is beyond doubt that handicapped people have the ability
to achieve a great deal in our society but unfortunately,
this is not sufficiently widely recognised. In many respects
the greatest disability faced by the handicapped is not
the physical or mental disability they have to face, but
the persistence of some attitudes in others which are
both deep-rooted and ill-founded.
There is, in our society, I believe a great deal of care and
concern for the handicapped but unfortunately, this all too
often goes with the belief that the handicapped cannot
achieve a great deal for themselves, or contribute much
to the society. There is a tendency to have a stereotype of
the " handicapped"; to view the handicapped as an
undifferentiated group, rather than as individuals with
different needs, ambitions and talents.
Across a wide range of areas there is a subtle and sometimes
not so subtle discrimination against the handicapped a
discrimination which has its origins in ignorance and
sometimes fear a fear of vulnerability to suffering some
disability ourselves which leads to a rejection of the
disabled. The consequences of this attitude are an attempt
to help, but not become too deeply involved; to provide
assistance at arm's length; to view the handicapped as
helpless and adopt a stance of unthinking paternalism.
At worst there may be an active resistance to the handicapped.
For instance the attempt to prevent the placement of facilities
for the handicapped in particular areas because such
facilities will " spoil the street" or " lower property values".
Such attitudes systematically block the strivings ' of the
handicapped for self-realisation and impede their attempts
to integrate into the community.
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Programmes for the handicapped and public expenditure
on income maintenance is important to allow individual
talents and abilities to be developed and used to
the utmost, and I believe that the record of this Government
is second to none in this regard. But even more
importantly, we all need to work together and mobilise
public opinion to overcome the stereotypes of the handicapped
and the discrimination they suffer.
Social attitudes, especially those that are based on
unexamined assumptions, are highly resistant to change.
The task is thus a difficult, but not an impossible one.
Community attitudes are, I believe, in the process of
change becoming less discriminatory and more accepting
of the handicapped and there is rightly a greater
assertiveness among the handicapped. We all need to do our
utmost to accelerate this process of change and I believe
that this Handicapped Person of the Year Award will take us
a further step in this process.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure in announcing
that the Handicapped Person of the Year Award for 1978
has been won by Mrs. EliZabeth Kosmala.
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