Galway Advertiser 2002/2002_10_10/GA_10102002_E1_030.pdf 

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The red and the black
BY KIERAN HAYES

Conference o n j o b s for people with disabilities
BY MARY O ' C O N N O R A MAJOR conference taking place in Galway next week will discuss employment for people with disabilities. This annual event is organised by the Irish Association of Supported Employment, a national voluntary organisation of people with disability, their families, employers and service providers. It will be held on Wednesday and Thursday October 16 and 17 at the Corrib Great Southern Hotel. Keynote speakers will include Deputy Frank Fahey, the junior minister for Labour Affair, Monica Wilson, the president of the European Union of Supported Employment and Dr Katherine Inge of the Virginia Commonwealth University in the United States. The association was established in 1994 to promote and develop supported employment in Ireland. It is now recognised by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and FAS as the voice of supported employment in this country. Michael Fleming, the national chairperson of the association who works with the Brothers of Charity in Ballybane, says supported employment is very effective in integrating people with disabilities into the open labour market. "It is built on the principal of person-centred planning and placement. Its ethos is to place people with disabilities into jobs, which they are suited to and which offers them personal fulfilment." The concept has worked well in the United States and in a number of European countries, he says. "Although relatively new in Ireland, it has proven to be effective here in achieving access to work for people with disabilities in integrated employment, and has the potential to meet the needs of all disability groups."

'In Bethlehem, we know two colours,' says Khaled Abu Ajamieh. 'Red and black. Red is for blood, black is for darkness.'
This is Ajamieh's first visit to Ireland, the first time he has ever been outside Bethlehem. He has never seen so much green before. In Deheisha refugee camp where he was bom 40 years ago, 13,000 people live in one square kilometre, and there are only 19 trees. To get permission to travel to Ireland he had to have an Italian friend travel to Tel Aviv with his passport to collect the visa, as he could not get permission to travel himself. Passing through numerous checkpoints, it took him three days to travel from Bethlehem to Jordan -to catch his flight. A painter, photographer, and cameraman, he says the only colour he can paint is his grief. "I would like to be able to dance, to sing," he says, "but the dogs in Ireland are treated better than the Palestinians. It seems no one cares. How can I teach my son other colours, when I don't know them myself?" Ajamieh is in Galway for Palestine Awareness Week, opened by Michael D Higgins in the Taibhdhearc theatre on Wednesday last week. Higgns spoke of the need for greater awareness and action on behalf of the people of Palestine, whose plight he describes as one of the greatest failures of the United Nations. "The imagination is a vital element in the life of the spirit, and in the spirit of a nation." says Higgins, but Ajamieh has little hope to imagine a better says tru i family, or his people. Watching the future f hstrubing images he recorded during graphic :ifida. it is not difficult to see why. the rece F161 part
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we see the bloody aftermath. A young boy, laid up on a stretcher, gutted by shrapnel, both arms and legs destroyed. He tums his head vacantly, and with horror you realise that he is still alive. Then the image of a mother weeping over her dead son, pulling back the bloodied red cloth of his shirt to see where the bullets have entered his chest. Images of tanks on Palestinian streets, their cogs grinding on the dry asphalt streets, the silent menace of their muzzles pointing towards a group of young people on their way to school. Palestinian men being handcuffed with plastic wire and blindfolded, stipped of their dignity. Israeli soldiers, filmed having lunch in the kitchen of a home they are searching. A tapestry of terror, degradation, unimaginable suffering. "In Bethlehem, we are good friends with death," he says. He has been arrested, shot three times, and had his camera crushed under the wheels of a tank, but sees it as his mission to tell show the truth of what is happening in Palestine. "To work as a journalist, it is a mission, not a job." Ajamieh has worked for Reuters and the BBC, but unlike European journalists, he is not issued with a flak jacket and helmet by the Israeli army. He says it is a fight against the "forces opposed to truth", drawing a parallel with the murder of journalist Veronica Geurin. and echoing Higgins' opening comments that, confronted with the "appalling set of assumptions that make war happen", it is becoming harder than before to have objective information and debate about the most important contemporary events. "It's an apartheid of the
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video tapes with footage of a fashion show to get it through customs. Despire that, several other tapes and photographs went missing, confiscated, he believes, by security officials. There is a palpable sense of anger and despair in Ajamia's voice. If there is another side to this bloody conflict, he cannot see it. Questioned about suicide bombers, he says he has Israeli friends, but admits that the family and friends of a suicide bomber feel honoured, revenged. "No one is bom a killer," he says. Driven to this pitch of hate and anger, he explains, they have nothing to lose. Even young boys, who should be attending school, fling stones at tanks and dodge plastic bullets. "If a young boy is hit with a plastic bullet, he is proud and thinks he is a hero. For 50 years the Palestinians suffer, but now they are defending themselves, they are tired of being slaves," he says. "We do not make good slaves. The only way for this to end is for the occupation to end." Like all Palestinians, Ajamieh feels keely that he has been cheated of his birthright, of his land and his freedom. "Ask a Palestinian child where they come from and they will not say Shantila camp or Deheisha camp, they will tell you the name of the village, Rammla or Yassa or Llud. I have visited my own village, where my grandfather is buried. You can still the the ruins of the houses and the mosque." One simple image from his exhibition seems to capture the plight, and the dreams, of the Palestinian people. It shows an old woman, hunkered on the ground, holding up a set of keys. They are the keys to a house, and a land, that are no longer hers.

Funding announced for community groups supporting older people
MORE THAN 21,000 in grants has been announced for community and v o l u n t a r y g r o u p s supporting older people throughout Galway. The money, which comes as part of a 30,000 tranche of funding for counties Galway and Mayo under the Scheme of Community Support for Older People, was announced this week by Minister of State for Community, Rural, and Gaeltacht Affairs Noel Ahem. The Galway groups which have been allocated funding are the Order of Malta, Inis Meain (6,861); Ardrahan Community Alert ( 6 , 7 7 7 ) ; Coiste Pobal ar Aire An Cheathru Rua (5,006); and Salthill Active Retirement Association (2,627). The Scheme of Community Support for Older People provides funding for initiatives to improve the security and social support of vulnerable older people. It is now administered by the Department of Community, Rural, and Family Affairs as part of its funding of local self-help and community development initiatives. Further information on the schemes administered by the Department are available at the website www.pobail.ie