CIEE's Approach to Accommodating Participants With Disabilities
CIEE is a member of the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange Roundtable task force that seeks to increase participation in study abroad by persons with disabilities. The task force is organized by Mobility International USA (MIUSA), a disabilities rights organization focused on study abroad.
Besides participation in the Roundtable, CIEE holds a session on disabilities at its Annual Conference in order to help educate a broader range of study abroad administrators and faculty about disabilities and exchange, and distributes MIUSA's information through our campus relations network. However, the most important way CIEE encourages students with disabilities to study abroad is by welcoming their inquiries from the initial level through acceptance to our programs.
CIEE's approach is to work individually with each potential participant to determine their needs, educational and experiential as well as physical, and the CIEE program that best suits their needs. We then work with the participant, the resident staff at the program site, the study abroad office, the student's on-campus disabilities office, overseas disabilities organizations, and MIUSA in order to accommodate individual needs.
Hamou Bouakkaz, Advisor to the Mayor of Paris, spoke at the CIEE Study Center in Paris in December 2007. Click here to learn his thoughts on French and American attitudes concerning disabilities. Mr Bouakkaz – who is blind – was able to use his personal experience and insight to elucidate ideas about society, health, and difference.
Click here to read an article presented at the CIEE Annual Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico in November 2004. This article was written and presented by Michele Scheib, MIUSA Project Initiatives Specialist. Other presenters included Marisa Saldana, CIEE Alumna, Jan Gothard, CIEE Regional Director, Australia, and Ines de Romana, University of California EAP.
Click here to meet a few of our amazing alumni with disabilities.
Go to www.miusa.org for more information.