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Rowan Garel 6 year old Rowan Garel, who blind, enjoys going to school alongside his sighted friends © Jenny Matthews / Sightsavers

Rowan Garel 6 year old Rowan Garel, who blind, enjoys going to school alongside his sighted friends © Jenny Matthews / Sightsavers

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Include Everybody!

Sightsavers is proud to launch a brand new website – the first of its kind tackling disability and the millennium development goals! We hope that www.includeeverybody.org will help spread the word about the importance of including disabled people in the goals set by world leaders to tackle poverty, as well as demonstrating ways people can get involved to make a difference.

The site was launched in conjunction with the International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC), a coalition supporting disability and development work all over the world, and the Millennium Campaign.

One in five of the world's poorest people are disabled, yet they are rarely considered in plans and programmes to meet the MDGs. Put simply – without including disabled people it’s extremely unlikely that the MDGs can possibly be met.

What are the Millennium Development Goals?

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were introduced to encourage the international community to stop talking about making a difference in the developing world but to join forces and do something about it.

They were agreed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000 and nearly 190 countries have signed up to them.

The Goals range from halving global poverty and hunger to protecting the environment, improving health and sanitation and tackling illiteracy and discrimination against women.

Alongside the Goals, 18 targets were also drawn up to give a tangible number of improvements to aim for within a fixed period of time, and to make it more practical to measure the progress.

The intention is that almost all of these targets will be achieved by 2015. Unfortunately, while significant progress is being made towards meeting some of the targets in some of the affected countries, in many cases progress is patchy, too slow or non-existent.

The Eight Millennium Development Goals are:

  • Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
  • Achieve universal primary education
  • Promote gender equality and empower women
  • Reduce child mortality
  • Improve maternal health
  • Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases
  • Ensure environmental sustainability

Disability affects all eight of the MDGs, making it an issue central to reducing poverty.

For example:

  • MDG 1 Poverty reduction. In Bangladesh, the employment rate of disabled people is less than a quarter of those without a disability.
  • MDG 2 Education. Of the 72 million children of primary school age out of school, over a third are disabled.
  • MDGs 4,5,6 Health. Disabled children and adults encounter numerous barriers to healthcare, including HIV services and information.