Celebrating the International Day of People with Disability

Since its inception in 1945, the United Nations (UN) has outlined and reiterated its commitment to calling for the creation of inclusive, accessible and sustainable societies and communities – most notably with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Over time, the UN has honed its focus on promoting the well-being and welfare of people living with disabilities, and in 1992 called for an international day of celebration for people living with disabilities to be held on December 3 each year.

International Day of People with Disabilities is not owned by the UN – it is owned by everyone: people, organisations, agencies, charities, places of learning – all of whom have a vital role to play in identifying and addressing discrimination, marginalization, exclusion and inaccessibility that many people living with disabilities face. International Day of People with Disabilities is one day on the international calendar, yet it symbolizes the actions we should take every day, in order to create diverse and accepting communities.

What is IDPWD for?

• Celebration – to recognise and value the diversity of our global community, and to cherish the role we all play, regardless of our abilities;
• Learning – to understand and learn from the experiences of people with living with a disability;
• It is a day for optimism – to look towards the future and the creation of a world where a person is not characterised by their disabilities, but by their abilities;
• Action – where all people, organisations, agencies and charities not only show their support for International Day of People with Disabilities, but take on a commitment to create a world characterised by equal human rights.

IDPwD 2023 Theme

The theme for IDPwD 2023 is ‘United in action to rescue and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for, with and by persons with disabilities.’

The 2023 theme for IDPwD asks everyone to work together to make the world better and fairer for people with disability.

The theme talks about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are 17 things countries want to work on by the year 2030 to make the world better and fairer for everyone. It is important that people with disability are part of this work and have a big say in what happens.

How this relates to Navitas

At Navitas we have begun a journey to consider and improve consider the impact we have as an educator, an employer and a global citizen. In particular, as an educator, we want to remove barriers to quality education.

Within this framework we have identified 12 priority topics aligned to the UN Sustainability goals.

As part of our commitment to understanding and measuring our IMPACT we conduct an annual survey of colleges and campuses. The questions are aligned to our IMPACT strategy and consider each of the twelve topics.

As part of the ‘Access to Education’ impact topic we asked Navitas colleges and campuses about the services that their students have access to.

Over the next few years we will be working with colleges and campuses to remove barriers to education to ensure that our programs are accessible to more students.

For reporting purposes we are considering our UP pathway colleges and managed campuses and our higher education institutions in the Careers & Industry division.