More on Japan, wonder woman Yukiko and an encounter in Tokyo’s red light area

(Excerpted from Memories that Linger: My journey through the world of disability by Padmani Mendis)

While at ESCAP in Bangkok, Yukiko invited me to travel with her to the Maldives in 1988 and to Laos in 1989 to discuss CBR at National Workshops on disability sponsored in those countries by ESCAP. For many disabled people in those countries, it was their first opportunity to participate in an event such as this. And for as many, to meet a disabled person from another culture.

I will share one experience in Vientiane which illustrates Yukiko’s perfect fit in the role she carries out. We had finished dinner at a hotel not far from where we resided. There was not much traffic at that time of night, and we walked on the road itself. Yukiko was quite tiny in build. Because of impairment, Yukiko used a pair of crutches and walked very slowly. When I saw a large truck approaching us I said to her, “Yukiko, see that truck? Let’s move aside.” Her determined reply was, “Why should we? They can see us.” To me, that says it all.

Back home in Japan at the end of her three years, Yukiko set up the Asia Disability Institute or ADI to enable formal support for disability both within her own country and in others. Once, when I was in Tokyo, Yukiko and Shoji invited me to stay in their home. Yukiko took the opportunity to invite members of ADI for a meeting that evening. In the morning she told me she had to go to the supermarket to buy some stuff to prepare food for her guests. She asked me whether I would like to join her.

Yukiko had by this time discarded her cumbersome crutches, and with that, discarded the confinement that conventional rehabilitation had imposed on her. She exerted her right to choose. And she had chosen to use an electric wheelchair.

And what an experience it was for me going shopping with Yukiko. Out though the door and on the street, she just whizzed along at such a pace that I had to run alongside to keep up. Eventually I had to give up and just follow her. Inside the supermarket was another experience. She whizzed again in and out and along the aisles picking out what she wanted off the shelves and popping them into the bag hanging on her chair. We were soon done. I had been but an observer, but I was exhausted just watching her.

Yukiko is the embodiment of independence. Of inclusion. Of freedom.

The Asia Disability Institute provides a forum in which disabled people and professionals come together to discuss disability issues and to discuss possible solutions. It provides excellent opportunities where an understanding on these matters can be reached through debate and discussion. Sometimes the focus was on Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR). A hot topic for discussion at the time was disability-inclusion and participation. On one occasion when I went to Japan, Yukiko arranged for me to share my experience at a large symposium organised by the University of Tokyo. This was in 2001.

The topic I was to share was, “The Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in the Community through Community-Based Rehabilitation, CBR”.

What’s in a name?

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell just as sweet.

William Shakespeare in ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Recently, I read about a large international forum discussing whether the words CBR should be replaced by Community-Based Inclusive Development. Some international organisations have Disability-Inclusive Development policies. Two comments: one is that we have learned globally through bitter experience that development must start with people, with the communities in which they live, start with a community-base. Imposing development from above brings no success. So prefixing the words “community-based” for development may be unnecessary.

Two, CBR is the strategy that has shown the way to disability inclusion in all development systems at all levels. What is important now is to ensure disability is included in development And call it what you will, until we find something better the strategy for disability inclusion will continue to be CBR.

What is a community?

By this time I had acquired a deep understanding of the “Community” in CBR. I am no sociologist and here I offer what I have learned on my journey. I believe that any one society is made up of a number of communities, one might say even a hierarchy of communities.

Starting with the very primary or neighbourhood community in which each of us lives, then in our immediate surroundings we may belong to women’s groups, youth groups and religious groups. Each individual thus belongs to many communities at the same time. Others may be common interest groups, professional bodies, sports, recreation and leisure groups, service clubs, development committees and councils and so on.

To me, the concept of disability inclusion must invade and permeate all these communities so that within society itself inclusion is built on a holistic foundation. CBR is a strategy that makes such inclusion and participation possible.

Moving with the Japanese

During the years that followed I was a frequent visitor to Japan. Formal addresses at the Universities of Nagoya and that of Osaka. Lecture tours and workshops to meet disabled people, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, NGOs and other professionals. On many of these I was accompanied by Masayuko Watanabe, himself a physiotherapist with an abiding interest in CBR.

A remarkable experience I had at this time was a very prestigious invitation to JICA headquarters for a meeting on CBR on JICA-NET. This was a video network used to bring together participants from JICA supported countries through video or internet conferencing. While the focal point was at the very modern JICA headquarters in Tokyo, JICA country offices were connected to this and to each other.

We had a very interesting and long discussion on CBR with Japanese disabled people and others associated with JICA in their member countries. Yukiko was the meeting facilitator. At that time this technology was a rarity and the meeting was a privilege. It has now been replaced by zoom and is an everyday occurrence.

Social Work Research Institute of the Japan College of Social Work

Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons declared by the UN which started in 1992 was coming to an end. At this time, the Social Work Research Institute of the Japan College of Social Work launched an initiative in the form of a research study. This was conducted from 2001 through to 2003. The study examined the outcomes of the decade within the region for the preparation of policies and strategies to ensure continuity of its impact.

Countries invited to participate in the study were Australia, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, USA and Vietnam, and ESCAP. Representatives from these countries and ESCAP were invited to Tokyo each year to meet and share findings. I was invited to represent Sri Lanka.

Comprehensive reports of the study were published each year and called the “International Comparative Study on Disability Policies and Programmes in the 21^st Century in Asia and the Pacific”.

An experience in Shinjuku

At the yearly meetings working days were heavy. Some of us needed to get away in the evenings to relax and be refreshed for the next day. On the humorous side, there is a memory I like to recall when I am asked about my experiences.

The American, the Thai and I soon became a close-knit trio. I have never understood how strangers come together to form a friendship group in such a short time. Alas, these are temporary. During that short time, we would spend the evenings enjoying whatever we could of Shinjuku where we were located. Shinjuku itself, though a ward of Tokyo, is very large. There was no way we could use the subway by ourselves. Signage in English was rare. But there was plenty to be enjoyed traversing Shinjuku on our feet.

And so the three of us found ourselves one evening in Tokyo’s Red Light District. John the size XXXL American in the middle and on either side of him the M-sized, sareed me and the S-minus Thai lady Gini. An unexpected threesome striding along, looking quite out of place in this bustling area, full of lights and of colour and of a particular kind of activity.

And then came to us a young man to ask, “You want girl? You want boy? You want boy and girl? See my photos?” with which he proceeded to show us proudly what he had to offer. Other young men started encircling us. The scene was becoming somewhat threatening.

John, the XXXL American, grabbed each of us by our elbows. We fled. We found a Starbucks at a safe distance. Where we sat and laughed our sides out over a world-renowned cup of American coffee. The first I had tasted of that brand. And have never drunk since. Nothing but prejudice of course.

Japan Overseas Volunteer Corps

Sri Lanka has been a close friend and a programme country of Japan for many decades. For the last forty years or more, we have being helped by the Japan Overseas Volunteer Corps or JOCV. Sri Lanka has had volunteers from Japan in the field of agriculture, forestry, education and health amongst other technical fields. They come to Sri Lanka quite conversant in our local languages and work closely with our people. We have had them help us in CBR too. Every year, about half a dozen find accommodation in the villages to work with local groups and with the area Social Service Officers.

Naoko Kato, the JOCV coordinator based in the embassy, made it a habit to bring to me for an unofficial briefing those that would work in disability before they went to their respective posts. Soon I was appointed as an official Adviser on Disability to the JOCV, Colombo. I continued as one for a few years. I must say the fluency volunteers showed in my mother tongue exceeded my own.

One day I was in discussion with the Director of Inclusive Education at the National Institute of Education in his office at Maharagama. I was with my back to the door. While we were talking, there was a tap on the door. It opened, and a female voice conversed with him in Sinhala for a few short minutes. I looked over my shoulder and saw it was a pretty young lady in Kandyan saree. When she had gone, I asked the director who it was. He replied, “Oh that is our Japanese volunteer.”

I had truly believed she was from the Kandyan areas for the fluency with which she used Sinhala. Moreover, she carried off that saree so gracefully – as though she had been born for it.