this week in social inclusion & diversity - pod rights episode 6

The Australian Human Rights Commission releases installment six of its first series of Pod Rights, a series of podcasts that looks at and delves into important issues in the human rights world.


In installment 6 of Pod Rights, Disability and Race Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, looks at a joint Commission and Pacific Disability Forum project, which is funded by AusAID.

This project focuses on building the knowledge and capacity of national disabled people's organisations (NDPO's) and governments in nine Pacific Island countries and reinforcing the importance of these organisations and governments working together to progress disability issues. The project aims to help the governments in these nine countries to better understand the rights of people with disability with a view to signing, ratifying and implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

A new installment of Pod Rights will appear on the Australian Human Rights Commission website every second Monday. You can listen to this sixth episode at: www.humanrights.gov.au/podcasts/index.html

Racism and the Student Experience Policy Research Workshop (Academy of Social Sciences, Australian Human Rights Commission & Universities Australia)

On 31 March 2010, the Racism and Student Experience Policy Research Workshop was convened to assess available data from social science research to assist with the prevention of racially motivated crimes against international students and improve international student safety.
This Communique outlines the discussions and research that were considered in the Workshop, as well as the conclusions that were formed. It is available on the Australian Human Rights Commission website at: www.humanrights.gov.au/racial_discrimination/forum/20100412_racism_students.html

Participating academics identified a critical need for:

• a major national study on the experiences of temporary migrants in Australia
• research on international student population in Australia in the following key areas:
• income and expenditure data
• living and working conditions
• experiences of discrimination
• strategies to support safe international student experience

The Academy of the Social Sciences, the Australian Human Rights Commission and Universities Australia resolved to:

• produce a discussion paper from the Racism and the Student Experience Policy Workshop.
• hold two subsequent workshop sessions to create dialogue between academics and key policy makers on the existing evidence base around international student safety.
• promote international student safety as a whole of community issue.
• call for a strategic approach to addressing racism in Australia and the development of a national anti-racism strategy.

Inclusive Learning Technologies Conference 2010 The Inclusive Technologies Conference 2010, hosted by Spectronics, is scheduled for 25-28 May.

Sessions include:

• E-inclusion: Learning difficulties and digital technology (plenary)
• Assistive Technologies, provision, training and support in Further and Higher
• Education in the UK
• Unlocking potential: Keys to an inclusive classroom (plenary)
• Alternative ways of supporting print impaired students.

The full conference program is available at: http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/conference/timetable

Compliance: Policy Drivers for VET
A summary of key policy drivers 2009-2010 is available from the TVET Australia site -  http://www.tvetaustralia.com.au/home
This document is an invaluable resource for VET stakeholders and includesreferences to the VET policy drivers with a significant section (section 5) on socialinclusion, equity and disability. This resource will also be updated after the May 2010 Commonwealth Budget release.