Rehabilitation

An amazing number of things can permanently incapacitate the human body without killing it. It is therefore difficult to pass a handicapped person without the thought, "There but for the grace of God go I". However, this is no excuse for ignoring the handicapped or for branding them as pitiful and useless individuals. Better by far to look at what they can do rather than what they cannot do. Unfortunately, many barriers prevent them from making full use of their abilities and from intermingling with the mainstream of society. For example, a simple street curb, flight of stairs, or shopping cart barrier can easily block a person in a wheelchair. At the Fourteenth World Congress of Rehabilitation International, which will take place in Winnipeg in June 1980, the delegates will thus discuss the question of integration as well as the critically important matter of preventing disability. Rehabilitation International was founded in 1922. It is a nongovernmental federation of national and international organizations providing rehabilitation services for the disabled in more than sixty countries. The congress will be a prelude to 1981, which by proclamation of the United Nations will be the "International Year for Disabled People". The rehabilitation stamp was designed by Rolf Harder of Montreal. The design symbolizes the motivating force behind rehabilitation - the idea of people helping people.