Here is my ‘review’ – perhaps ‘appraisal’ or ‘observations’ would be a better way of describing it – of the documentary ‘Mark – A Call to Action’, about my friend, the late Dr. Mark Bookman, which I hope receives wider attention.
Japan’s infrastructure ministry plans to create a nationwide rule requiring that 0.5 pct of seats at sports venues and theaters be reserved for wheelchair users.
The central government’s move comes after many local governments have set their own wheelchair space requirements of 0.5 pct or more.
Residents with mental and intellectual disabilities have faced difficulties finding and staying at evacuation centers in disaster-hit areas of Ishikawa Prefecture.
The shelters are not equipped to provide the special needs of these quake victims, and other evacuees have complained about their new disabled neighbors.
The place, Sophia University, Yotsuya Campus. The date, Sunday February 25th 2024.
The reason for this gathering was to watch ‘Mark – A Call to Action’, a documentary film about the late Mark Bookman, an academic historian and disability activist.
Both novel coronavirus and influenza cases remain high in Japan, prompting experts to urge people to continue taking basic countermeasures such as the use of face masks, hand-washing and ventilation.
According to the data, new COVID-19 cases reported in the week to Feb. 11 stood at 13.75 per institution. By prefecture, Ishikawa in central Japan had the largest number, at 21.91, followed by Aichi, also central Japan, at 20.06.
Barrier Free Japan is hopefully off to Tokyo by the time this podcast episode drops, or in the language of Douglas Adams, ‘will and have been’ to Tokyo, weather permitting on Sunday 25th February 2024, to see the film about the late Mark Bookman.
Esports is being employed with the aim of preserving cognitive functions in elderly individuals and serving as a means of social exchange for those with disabilities. In the current fiscal year to March, the Tokyo metropolitan government has started a project to provide game lending services to facilities for disabled individuals in the Japanese capital.
Currently, about 120 nursing care facilities and facilities for the disabled across the nation have adopted the association’s esports system through monthly contracts. The system accommodates up to four players engaged in simultaneous gameplay, and a monthly competition fosters online interaction among participants.
Each year in Japan there are over 200,000 abortions. Every two weeks, a newborn infant dies of abandonment. And each year, more than 50 children lose their lives to physical abuse at the hands of their parents.
This is according to the nonprofit Migiwa, based in Nara Prefecture, western Japan.
Migiwa’s mission is to protect unwanted babies, acting as a mediator to help place them with new families through plenary adoption. Such cases often involve birth mothers choosing to give up their right to raise their child with a disability such as Down syndrome.
In Kiryu City, a business operator that operates a support facility for children with disabilities fraudulently lost over 2.5 million yen in benefits from the city and other organizations by pretending that the manager was working full-time. The prefecture’s designation was revoked as a result of an administrative penalty for receiving the benefits.
The prefecture will cancel the designation of this business operator on April 1st, meaning that the business operator will not be able to provide support for children with disabilities for five years thereafter.
A mentally disabled woman who was forced into prostitution was given a six-year prison term for fatally stabbing an elderly client she was trying to steal from at a Tokyo love hotel.
The Tokyo District Court on Feb. 20 convicted Haruka Fujii, 26, of injury resulting in the death of the 82-year-old customer in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district in 2022.
Prosecutors had sought a nine-year prison sentence, but the court took into account Fujii’s mental condition that made her vulnerable to exploitation and prone to involuntary criminal activity.
Barrier Free Japan