31st National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Month Launches in Naga City in July

The whole month of July, the Philippines celebrates the 31st National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation (NDPR) Month. Launching activities shall be held in various venues in Naga City on July 1, 2009-- the first time that NDPR launching events are held outside the National Capital Region.

Dr. Josephine Robredo-Bundoc, in-country Director at the Philippines Walking Free clinic and consultant at the UP-PGH Department of Rehabilitation Medicine is this year's Coordinator of the National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Month. Dr. Bundoc is a native of Naga City and the younger sister of city mayor Jesse Robredo.

The day starts off at Plaza Quezon in downtown Naga at 7:30 in the morning with Disability Walk…. towards Independence. Two hundred persons with disabilities from the 14 municipalities of Metro Naga walk hand in hand with their able-bodied fellow Bicolanos as a manifestation of unity and support towards activities, programs and issues towards upliftment, independence and empowerment of the disabled.

The walk ends at the lobby of SM City Naga in Barangay Triangulo where another activity, Talents…. Enabled!, shall be held. Amputees who have regained their mobility with use of limb prostheses shall showcase their dancing skills;the hearing-impaired shall sing on key; and the the wheelchair-borne will gracefully sashay in tempo.

Medical and Rehabilitation Services, themed From Objects to Subjects :Towards Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Society,  follow. Free medical services will be provided to the disabled while lay fora pertaining to wellness and disability prevention will be conducted to their caregivers and health providers.

The day culminates at the Naga City Civic Center with a lecture from a deaf-blind lawyer from Finland, Atty. Triku Virtanen, who will talk on the legal, academic and socio-economic issues of independent living, human rights and full Inclusion of persons with disabilities.

Members of UP Ibalon Bicol, Dr. Bundoc's co-alumni at the University of the Philippines, assist her in this momentous event.

Click here to view the schedule of activities.