Schedule
Room and Venue
Tuesday 17 March 16:00 - 17:30
Exhibition Hall 1, Sendai International Conference Centre
UNISDR Focal Point Ms. Stefanie Dannenmann-Di Palma , dannenmann@un.org
Ms. Tomoko Takeda, takeda@un.org
Moderator

Mr. Monthian Buntan, United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities
Opening
 Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman, The Nippon Foundation, Japan
Speakers
 Mr. Paul Njoroge, Senator, Kenya

Ms. Sonnia Margarita, World Federation of Deaf Blind, Latin America
 Ms. Marcie Roth, Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States of
America

Ms. Satoko Akiyama, Urakawa Bethel’s House, Japan

Mr. Setareki Macanawai, CEO, Pacific Disability Forum, Fiji
Closing

Ms Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Latvia

United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Mr. Monthian Buntan has served as a Senator of the Upper House of the
Royal Thai Parliament since 2008 to 2014. His current position is Member of the National Legislative Assembly, Royal Thai Parliament and Member of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He has been blind since birth. After serving as a university lecturer for eight years,
Senator Monthian left his stable teaching career to become a full time social activist in 2002. He has served in a number of positions within the organized blind movement in Thailand, currently in his second four-year term as president of the Thailand
Association of the Blind. His role in the World Blind Union (WBU) began officially in 1996 as one of the blind youth committee members before he was elected to serve as a WBU executive committee member in 2000.
Mr. Buntan is proud to be a part of two major contributions: the World Summit on Information
Society (WSIS) from which the first disability-inclusive policy documents in the mainstream society at the international level were created, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which is the first thematic international human rights law for persons with disabilities and the first international human rights treaty of the twenty-first century. Mr. Buntan strives to make information and communication technologies accessible to all, including people who are blind. His favorite slogan is "I've given up on giving up." Senator
Monthian earned his Master’s degree from the University of Minnesota.
Chairman, The Nippon Foundation, Japan
Mr. Sasakawa joined the Nippon Foundation as a trustee in 1981, served as president from 1989, and became chairman on July 1, 2005. The foundation’s overall objectives include assistance for humanitarian activities, both in Japan and overseas, and global maritime development.
Its philanthropic ideals embrace social development and self-sufficiency, and it pursues these principles by working to improve public health and education, alleviate poverty, eliminate hunger, and help the disabled.
Together with the World Health Organization Sasakawa Health Prize and the UN Environment
Programme Sasakawa Environment Prize, the United Nations Sasakawa Award for Disaster
Reduction is one of three prestigious prizes established in 1986 by founding Chairman of the
Nippon Foundation. It is worth approximately US $50,000 and is shared among the Laureates.
Nominees also receive Certificates of Distinction and Merit.

Senator, Kenya
Sen. Njoroge was born on 20 April 1961. He has an education background in Agriculture. He is a nominated Senator, representing persons with disability. This is his first term in Parliament.
Before coming to Parliament, he was an avid advocate for the rights and entitlements of persons with disability. Notably, he was instrumental in advocating for the enactment the Persons with Disability Act of 2003 and amendment thereof later. He has served as a board member for the National Council for Persons with Disability in Kenya, which is the state body that addresses needs of persons with disability. In 2004, he initiated a training programme for community health workers and doctors on how to handle persons with disabilities.
During his current term in Parliament, he has initiated a global conference that will bring together parliamentarians from across 73 countries in the world to discuss the challenges facing persons with disabilities and the existing policy and legislative gaps. The Senate will host the global conference from 23-27 September.
World Federation of Deaf Blind, Latin America
Dr. Sonia Margarita Villacres has a doctorate in psychology, a master’s degree in special education and has been a professor of special education in Ecuador for 35 years. She is also the vice president of the
World Federation of the Deaf Blind (WFDB) and the treasurer for the
Latin American Federation of the Deaf Blind.
UNISDR video of Ms Margarita in Ecuador: http://www.eird.org/americas/index.html

Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States of America
Marcie Roth was appointed by President Obama to the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security - Federal Emergency Management
Agency in 2009. She serves as Senior Advisor and Director of the Office of Disability Integration and Coordination, supporting implementation of the President’s National Preparedness Goal and leading the national transformation towards reducing the disproportionate impact of disasters on people with disabilities, older adults, children and families, people who are poor and others who also have access and functional needs by increasing equal access to emergency programs and services by integrating the access and functional needs of people with and without disabilities in all aspects of whole community emergency preparedness and disaster response, recovery and mitigation.
Ms. Roth joined DHS/FEMA after serving for over 20 years in senior leadership positions with national and international disability policy organizations. She led national private sector response to the needs of survivors with disabilities during and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and she was commended by the White House for her efforts on behalf of New Yorkers with disabilities in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
In her senior leadership role at FEMA, she provides policy and operational guidance, advice and technical expertise for meeting equal access requirements for physical, program and effective communication accessibility across emergency preparedness, response and recovery programs and services, with a focus on inclusive planning and universal accessibility. She leads a team of seventy disability integration advisors who have deployed to over one hundred disasters since
2011. Ms. Roth’s office also leads the work of the Federal Interagency Coordinating Council on
Emergency Preparedness and Individuals with Disabilities, and she represents the US government internationally as an expert on disability inclusive global disaster risk reduction.
Ms. Roth is a 2014 Harvard Kennedy School Senior Executive Fellow and she lives outside
Washington, DC.

Urakawa Bethel’s House, Japan
I had deep depression several times in my life. I've been working at
Bethel's house for 6 years as a member myself. I want to value the connection with the friend from now on.
She was born in 1977. She is from Ibaraki prefecture, Japan. After graduating from a high school in her hometown, she went on to the department of English language and literature in a junior college. She has been depressed since high school. The depression got worse through environmental changes such as entering junior college and employment. To find her own place, she went to New Zealand to study at the age of 20, but in vain. She couldn’t feel her spirit emerge at all. She changed her job many times and experienced severe depression several times. At the age of 27, she moved to Urakawa Town,
Hokkaido prefecture, Japan. She learned about self-help and communication skill not only having treatment. Especially thanks to Tohjisya Kenkyu (*1), she studied how to help herself.
She recovered human relationship and got to be able to continue her job. In 2008, she started working at Urakawa Bethel House (*2) as a person in charge of disaster risk reduction. She dealt with the research project on strengthening and promoting welfare for persons with disability in case of emergency such as disaster conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
Since 2005, Urakawa Bethel House has been conducting the Disaster Risk Reduction project which connects Persons with disabilities and Local community. As Ms. Akiyama is in charge of this project, DRR activities are now more active at Urakawa Bethel House. Now, she is working and supporting members with disabilities as a peer staff (staff working by utilizing experience such as disability) at Urakawa Bethel House.
※１ Tohjisya Kenkyu
Assessment and Study of Self, Collaborative Empiricism: Working Together to Analyze Yourself
The activity intended to Self-Help which started from Urakawa Bethel House.
Tohjisya Kenkyu is the process of studying. People with disability such as schizophrenia seek their own theme of study through their own experiences such as difficulties of their life events, human relationship and medicine control. They communicate with their company about the theme continuously. Through the communication they get to be able to feel they are connected with each other and find out positive meanings, possibilities and patterns of their experience and difficulties with their own original and creative idea.
Tohjisha Kenkyu helps people to understand themselves better and to learn how to help themselves.
※２ Urakawa Bethel's house
Urakawa Bethel's house is a social welfare organization providing vocational support and living support to people with disability such as psycho-social disability.

CEO, Pacific Disability Forum, Fiji
Mr. Setareki S. Macanawai is currently the CEO for the Pacific Disability
Forum and previously worked as the Executive Director for the Fiji
National Council for Disabled Persons and Head Teacher of the Fiji
School for the Blind. He graduated from Corpus Christi Teachers College in Fiji with a Primary Teachers Certificate and studied at the Auckland
College of Education in New Zealand in 1988 graduating with a Diploma in the Education of Visually Impaired Children. He also attended the University of Tennessee at
Chattannooga in the United States between 1993 and 1994 before completing his Bachelor of
Education (Special Education) and Masters in Educational Administration (Honours) degree between 1996 and 1998 at the University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales,
Australia. Mr. Macanawai received a number of regional and international awards in recognition of his achievements in the field of disability, including:
November 2012, Asia-Pacific Disability Rights Champions Award. Awarded by the United
Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in recognition of outstanding substantive expertise and experience, exceptional record of achievements in mobilising support for the empowerment of persons with disabilities and disability inclusive development, and significance of demonstrated potential for championing the rights of persons with disabilities in the new Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities, 2013-20122.
April 2011, Disability Pasifika Award. Awarded by the Pacific Disability Forum to honour individuals with disabilities who have made significant contribution to the delivery of services to and awareness, protection and recognition of the human rights of persons with disabilities in Pacific Island countries and territories.
December 2008, Regional Rights Resource Team/Secretariat of the Pacific Community
(RRRT/SPC) 2008 Pacific Human Rights Award. Special Citations for Advancing the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the Pacific Region.
6th Kazuo Itoga Memorial Foundation Award in Japan in 2002 for outstanding contribution to disability development work in the Asian/Pacific Region.
Faculty Medal in 1999 at the University of New England, Armidale, NSW in Australia, and
Residential Scholar Award in 1994 at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA for meritorious academic achievement.
Setareki is a leading disability advocate in Asia and the Pacific region, and has served in the committees of many international and regional organisations concern with disability. Currently, he is a member of the Disability Reference Group of the Australian Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade as well as Global Advisory Panel Member of the Disability Rights Fund. He has presented papers at regional and international meetings and conferences, and has written several articles, chapters and thesis on disability. Setareki is a keen advocate of disability inclusive development where persons with disabilities and their representative organisations are in the front and centre, and playing a key role in all aspects of such development.

Closing
Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, Latvia
In 2004 Ms Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica obtained her Master’s degree at the
Faculty of Economics and Management of the University of Latvia, where in
2013 she also obtained Doctoral degree in Management science, subfield of public administration.
Ms Kalniņa-Lukaševica started her professional career in 1998 at the City
Council of Jūrmala. Between 2003 and 2008 she worked for the Ministry of Regional
Development and local government, first, as Deputy Director of Local Government
Development and Reform Department and then as Deputy State Secretary. In 2008, Ms Kalniņa-
Lukaševica was appointed to the Strategic Analysis Commission of the Chancery of the
President of Latvia. In 2010, she became adviser on strategic and analysis to the President of the Republic of Latvia at the Chancery of the President of Latvia.
In 2014 Dr Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica was appointed as Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs
(responsible for European Affairs of Latvia).