Magna Carta for Students Essay

EXPLANATORY NOTE One of the biggest foundations of a progressive nation is an educated population. Development in the different areas of knowledge such a science and technology, business, medicine, social science and others have brought about drastic advancement in our present society. In an increasingly demanding and dynamic global economy, competitiveness, more than an advantage, is a must. As expressed in the Philippine Constitution, education is one of the priorities of the State. Aside from the basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing, it is one of the primary necessities that the State should provide for its constituents. While the private sector is an active participant in the promotion of education at present, the governrnent should still lead in ensuring its quality and accessibility. It should be recognized that the full development of the students is not dependent merely on books and lectures. Aside from providing them with an environment conductive to learning, it is the duty of the State to ensure the quality of education that goes beyond the corners of the classroom; for indeed the true lessons in life are gained in the real world. However, the present formal educational system has, in one way or another, deprived the students of the chance to develop their full potential. This Magna Carta for Students intends to equalize the chance of the students to admission in school and to avail of competent and quality education. It seeks to provide measures to ensure that the students are able to exercise their rights to organize, right to participate in policy-making, right to academic freedom, and right to free expression and information. For these reasons, the passage of this bill is earnestly sought. Senator FIFTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES First Regular Session ) ) ) HI SENATE Senate Bill No. JUl. -8 A9 :(). :i 911 INTRODUCED BY SEN. JINGGOY EJERCITO ESTRADA AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MAGNA CARTA OF STUDENTS Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled: SECTION 1. Students†. Title. This Act shall be known as the â€Å"Magna Carta of CHAPTER I GENERAL PRINCIPLES SEC. 2. Declaration of Policy. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the State to promote and protect the rights of students to enable them to participate actively and effectively in the democratic processes of effective progressive and developmental changes in society. SEC. 3. Guiding Principles. This Act declares the following as basic guiding principles: (a) The formal educational system being the principal institutional mechanism for imparting knowledge and developing skills is given priority attention and support by the govemment. Education is a right and not a mere privilege. It is therefore the responsibility of the State to provide quality education accessible at all curriculum levels. Student organizations enhance democratic processes on the campus. Membership and active which promote and protect students’ rights and welfare andor contribute to national development shall be guaranteed by the State and school authorities. Student organizations shall not be subject to rules and regulations that unduly hamper their activities and are prejudicial to their objectives and interests, provided such objectives, activities and interests are with the school’s mission. Student councils’governments being the most representative of the studentry and the highest expression of student power on campus shall be consulted in the formulation of school policies directly affecting students. (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) . (g) Student publication shall serve as a principal, medium for free and responsible expression, dissemination of information, and interaction, among the different sectors of the academic community . With their democratic rights guaranteed, students can serve as a potent and cogent force in the country’s social transformation. SEC. 4. Definition of Terms. As used in this Act, the following terms shall mean: (a) â€Å"Student† – any person enrolled in school in post secondary, tertiary, graduate and post graduate levels, including vocational and technical education. â€Å"School† – any private, public or government-run and funded academic educational institution offering any or all courses in the above-mentioned levels. â€Å"School campus† – the totality of all contiguous or proximate buildings, grounds and other facilities designed by the school as areas or facilities for the use of its students. â€Å"Governing Board† – the highest policy making body of the school such as: Board of Directors, Trustees or Regents. â€Å"Student Council/Government† – the body representing the whole student population in one school or school campus whose officers are annually elected at large by the whole student population pursuant to its constitution and by-laws, if any. â€Å"Council of Leaders† – the body composed of the heads of various stUdent organizations chaired by the President/Chairman of the Student Council. â€Å"Tuition Fee† – The fee representing direct costs of instructions, training and other related activities, and the use of school facilities. The term â€Å"other school fees† refers to fees which cover other necessary costs supportive of instruction, including but not limited to medical and dental, athletic, library, laboratory, and Citizen Army Training (CAT) or Citizen Military Training (CMT) fees. CHAPTER II RIGHT TO ADMISSION AND QUALITY EDUCATION SEC. 5. Admission. . (a) No student shall be denied admission to any school on account of his/her physical handicap, socio-economic status, political or religious beliefs, or shall pregnant students and certified reformed drug abusers be discriminated against. A student shall have the right to freely choose his/her field of study subject to existing curricula and the instituti. on’s admissions policies and to continue his/her course up to graduation except in case of academic deficiency, inability to meet program requirement, or violation of disciplinary regulations which do not infringe upon the exercise of students’ rights. (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (b) SEC. 6. Rights to Competent Instruction and Relevant Quality Education. Every student shall have the right to competent instruction and quality education to relevant to his/her personal and cultural development and  that of the nation, and commensurate to the school fees paid, and for state institutions, public subsidies granted. Students shall have the right to make a written evaluation of the performance of their teachers toward the end of the school term. SEC. 7. Right to Adequate Student Services and Academic Facilities. It shall be the responsibility of the school administration to provide the students with adequate student services and academic facilities commensurate to the school fees paid, and for SCUs, public subsidies granted. CHAPTER III RIGHT TO ORGANIZE SEC. 8. Right to Organize among Themselves. Unity and collective effort being fundamental to the realization of common goal and the promotion and protection of common interest, the State recognizes the right of student to organize among themselves . . The rights of student to form, assist, or join any campus organization, alliance or federation, not contrary to the school mission, for their physical, intellectual, moral, cultural, spiritual and political interest shall not be abridged. SEC. 9. Student Council/Government. The State shall ensure the democratic and autonomous existence of student councils/governments. Pursuant thereto, there shall be one student council/government for each school campus, which shall be given recognition by the school, colleges and universities concerned. It shall have its own. set of officers elected in annual popular elections. Every student council/government shall have the right to determine its policies and program on student activities subject to this duly ratified charter or constitution, school rules and regulation, and state policy. SEC. 10. Recognition of and Granting of privileges to Student Organizations. No unreasonable requirements shall be imposed on student organizations seeking recognition. The guidelines concerning recognition shall be formulated by the Student Affairs Office in consultation with the student council. The process for seeking recognition shall begin upon the submission to the Student Affairs Office by the organization concerned on its (1) concept paper and constitution; and (2) a formal letter addressed to the Student Affairs stating that the organization’s intent to be recognized. Recognition will be granted by the Students affairs Office upon compliance with the guidelines. There shall be no discrimination in the assignment of school facilities and granting of other privileges to student organizations. Excessive charges for the use of school facilities shall be prohibited. Whenever possible the school administration shall allow stud~nt organizations to use school facilities free of charge. SEC. 11. Coordination of Student Organizations’ Activities. All on and off campus activities of student organization shall be coordinated by the student council/government in consultation with the Student affairs office. The Committee on Elections (COMELEC) constituted to conduct the election of the officers of the student council/government shall be composed solely of bona fide student of the school. The conduct of the student council election shall be held in coordination with the Student Affairs Office. SEC. 12. Prohibition against the Use of Force and Exaction and Excessive. All campus organization shall be prohibited from using force in initiation and from exacting excessive fees from their members, as well as in their other student’s activities. CHAPTER IV RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN POLICY MAKING SEC. 13. Representation in policy-making process. The student shall be represented in policy-making bodies (other than the governing board) which directly affect their welfare, especially in curriculum review, student discipline and academic standards. The representatives shall be designed by the student council. SEC. 14. Student Initiative and Referendum. The student council/government through a majority vote of all the members of the student body shall have the right to initiate the formulation, modification or rejection of a school policy affecting the students. The proposition for the formulation, modification or rejection of a school policy affecting the students shall be submitted to and approved by a majority of votes casts by all bona fide students of the school in an areas shall be excluded from the power of students on initiative or referendum: (a) admission; (b) curriculum; gc) faculty recruitment and tenure; (d) rules on student conduct and discipline; (e) tuition fees; and (f) scholastic rules (e. g.academic credits and retention and graduation of students). CHAPTER V RIGHT TO FREE EXPRESSION AND INFORMATION AND RIGHT TO ACADEMIC FREEDOM , SEC. 15. Right to be Informed. The right of the student to be given information upon request on matters directly affecting their welfare shall be recog ·nized. SEC. 16. Freedom of Expression. Subject to existing laws and school rules and regulations, students shall have the right to freely express their view and opinions. SEC. 17. Academic Freedom. Students’ academic freedom shall subject to school rules and regulations and the exercise by the school and members of the faculty of their respective academic freedom, consist of, but is not limited to, the following rights: (a) To conduct research in connection with academic work, and to freely discuss and publish their findings and recommendations; (b) To conduct inquiry in curricular and extracurricular activities within the campus and in appropriate circumstances; (c) To choose a field of study for research and to pursue the quest for truth; to express their opinion on any subject of public or general concern which directly or indirectly affects the students of the educational system; (d) To invite off-campus speakers or resource persons to student sponsored assemblies, fora, symposia, and other activities of similar nature; (e) To express contrary interpretation or dissenting opinions inside and outside the classroom; (f) To participate in the drafting of a new curriculum and in the review or revision of the old; and (g) To participate in the drafting and/or revising of the student handbook which shall include the school rules and regulations, a copy of which shall be furnished the students upon admission to the school. , CHAPTER VI . RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS IN DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS . SEC. 18. Right to Due Process. (a) (b) A student subject tot disciplinary proceedings shall have the right to defend himself/herself, to be heard and to present evidence on his/her behalf before an impartial body. There shall be a Student Disciplinary Board to be composed of two (2) representatives form the school administration, one (1) faculty member, and two (2) students to conduct investigations into and decide on cases student violation of disciplinary standards. The blacklisting, expulsion, suspension and other such disciplinary sanctions that may be taken against a student shall not be valid unless the following rights have been observed: (1) the right to be informed in writing of the nature and cause of the accusations against his/her; (2) the right to confront witnesses against him/her and to have full access to the evidence on the case; (3) the right to defend himself/herself and to be defended by a represented or counsel of his/her choice, adequate time being given for the preparation of a defense; (4) the right to a hearing before the student Disciplinary Board; (5) the right against self incrimination; and (6) the right to appeal adverse decisions of the Student Disciplinary Board to the governing board and ultimately to the appropriate education agencies. (c) The decision in any disciplinary proceeding must be rendered in the basis of relevant and sUbstantial evidence presented at the hearing, or at least contained in the record and disclosed to the student affected. The deciding body must act on its own independent consideration of the facts of the case. The body should, in all controversial questions, render its decision in such a manner that the issues involved, and the reasons for any decision made are clear to the student. (d) Disciplinary sanctions shall be corrective rather publish on a periodic basis acts which are deem violate or school rules and regulations and the corresponding disciplinary sanctions do not violate the rights guaranteed herein and under the Constitution. CHAPTER VII OTHER RIGHTS SEC. 19. Right Against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures. Every student shall be free from any form of unreasonable search and seizure. Except for the following instances no search or seizure of a student shall be deemed valid: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) Searches made at the point of ingress and egress by authorized personnel of the school. Searches and seizures of illegal article or articles falling in the plain view of duly authorized personnel; Searches and seizures of articles that are illegal, discovered inadvertently by duly authorized personnel; Searches made when the student is about to commit, is committing or has just committed a crime or a serious infraction of the school’s rules and regulations; Searches made with a valid search warrant. Articles seized in violation of the here above mentioned provided rights shall not be used as evidence against the student in any disciplinary action that may be brought against him/her. SEC. 20. Access to School Records and Issuance of Official Certificates. Subject to the provision of the following section, every student shall have access to her/him own school record, the confidentiality of which the school shall  ·maintain. He/she shall have the right to be issued official certificates, diplomas, transcript of records, grades, transfer credentials and other similar documents within thirty (30) days from the filing of request and accomplishment of all pertinent requirements. SEC. 21. Unpaid Tuition Fees and Examination. No student shall be prohibited from taking a periodic or final examination because of unpaid tuition and other fees under the established terms of payment prescribed by the school concemed and approved by the appropriate education agency. Students with delinquent fees permitted to take an examination shall nevertheless be subject to the right of the school concerned to withhold the release or issuance of such students’ school records or of the documents mentioned in the preceding section or to deny such students’ admission at the next succeeding term or year until the prior delinquencies are fully paid.

The Impact of Scale on Francesco Borromini’s Sac Carlo Alle

San Carlo Quattro Fontane, known in popular speech as â€Å"San Carlino’ in reference to its small size, is Roman Catholic Church built between 1638- 1648 by an Architect named Francesco Borromini from Ticino, precursor to the modern day Switzerland. San Carlo Quattro Fontane is located in Rome, Italy on the crossing of Strada Felice and Via Pia was built originally for the Spanish Trinitarians as an extension of their already existing monastery .San Carlo alle Quattro Fontanne is often considered Borromini’s most iconic masterpiece of Baroque architecture for his signature use of undulating surfaces, pure mathematical forms and conforming geometrical shaping. San Carlo is significantly small given the magnitude of baroque constructed during Borromini’s time however does this hinder San Carlo’s architectural effect and impact as a classified baroque form of architecture? Francesco Borromini was a stone mason by trade and started off as a stone mason in hi s early career.Under directions of his father, he was sent to Milan for perfecting his skills in stone cutting when he was introduced to the craft of architecture before moving to Rome in the early 1600’s and started work for his distant relative and architect, Carlo Maderno. Only after Maderno’s death did Borromini became acquainted with the great Gian Bernini. Bernini became Borromini’s great friend and colleague as they worked on projects such Maderno’s Palazzo Barberini and the Baldachin in Saint Peter’s Cathedral.Bernini was impressed with Borromini’s novel formulation of architectural detail, something he has greatly perfected as a stonemason. The pair would become prime influences of the Italian baroque movement in Rome of the 1600s in advance of Pope Sixtus V ‘s â€Å"Roma in forma sideris† plan of Rome. Unlike Bernini’s character traits of being able to please aristocratic and the powerful, Borromini was a lonely , withdrawn man who looked to become an independent architect who prided himself on his specialized training and gained the most modest degree of recognition.As a Result Borromini began to part ways, both stylistically and personally, with Bernini and set about finding his own projects. On Borromini’s later works, Bernini criticized Borromini in abandoning the anthropomorphic nature in building design. At the time it was argued that building proportions should be derived from the proportion of the body of a man, the proportions of the Vitruvian man (as seen below), as it was argued that the proportions of the man was modeled in the image of God.Boromini however believed in the science of mathematics and how the idea of geometry and nature being inseparably connected, much like what Gallaleo wrote about, and he tries to bring light and shape to the fore of his style. After being commissioned by the Cardinal Francesco Barberini of the Spanish Trinitarians, Borromini’s fi rst independent commission, Borromini departs from the orthodox interpretations of antiquity and takes up his own style in reference to his ideals on geometry and mathematical proportions. As a result of Borromini’s freedom to create in the image of his ideals, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane has elements of unparalleled spatial complexity and Curvilinear Facades. The entire exterior facade of the church is an example of Borromini’s predilection for convex and concave forms which creates an undulating surface which transforms the movement of the facade from static to highly dynamic, or as observers would observe, almost like a wave.In addition to the curvilinear form the front of the church, the front facade is divided into two stories by projecting cornices and laterally divided by four ionic columns with capitals. The main body of the church is an undulating ovular shape with a ovular dome and a lantern on top of it to let light into the body, just like oculus in the pantheon. However the basic concept of the plan does not derive from an oval but from the main theme of the order of religion, The Spanish Trinitarians, which believes in the holy trinity.The plan and direction of the church is orientated based on the diagram below where the holy trinity, symbolized as the triangle is put back to back to form a diamond shape. This diamond shape is then inscribed on the outside making an oval shape, the shape of the main body of the church. Within this oval shape two circles are drawn and from those circles lines can be drawn from one point to another from the church and thus making those lines the direction of the architecture . The interior of the church can be vertically divided into three principal arts of the lower order at ground level, the transition zone of the pendentives and the ovular dome with it’s oval shaped lantern. Dividing the lower part of the church to the upper part is again the occurrence of undulating lines above the ioni c columns which envelop the lower part of the church. The ovular dome shape is made of interconnected squares, crosses, hexagons and octagons which diminish in size as they rise up towards the oval shaped lantern which allows natural light to pass in and dramatize the all white interior of the church.The scale of the church is relatively small compared to the monumental likes of grand architecture such as the Piazza di San Pietro by Bernini, as it was noted that the size of the San Carlo Church can fit in the one of the dome columns at Saint Peter’s basilica However Borromini exploration with small buildings on complicated ground planes which presented, often, irregular spaces, led to a new form of architectural expression which was extremely radical at the time.His ability to maintain architectural unity with the use of curvilinear of both the interior and exterior of the church, along with the mixture of classical components from ancient Greece, highlights the significance of the San Carlino Church as a new form which broke away from the contemporary architecture which mainly derived from Vitruvius’ ideals, seen widely expressed during that time period.However such a radical change in contemporary architecture at the time was too radical and Borromini’s work was met with critical harshness. Due to his poor critical response from art and architecture critiques at the time, he received very little acclaim during his life and consequently didn’t receive as many opportunities to create such as the likes of his old colleague Bernini and often worked for religious orders rather than the papal church.Thus arriving at my opinion that if Borromini was given the chance to design on a much larger scale for example the papal church, his architectural forms and thinking would have been taken more serious and thought about more and would have no doubt had greater influences on architecture which preceded it. Due to the lack of funding of his pr ojects, the scale of San Carlo all Quattro Fontane was extremely small yet it was packed with such elegance and adorned with such detail. In my opinion if improvements could be made, the location and the scale of the church could’ve further highlighted the architectural genius of Borromini.

Gilgamesh

The epic of Gilgamesh is about the ruler of uruk Gilgamesh and his quest to receive everlasting life. Gilgamesh wanted to receive everlasting life because he saw his best friend enkidu die of a slow agonizing death witch lead Gilgamesh to put his own mortality to question.. Enkidu died this death as punishment for the thing he and Gilgamesh did like kill the bull of heaven and chop down all the trees in the cedar forest after killing the demon humbaba. So Gilgamesh goes to the end of the earth to find utnapishtims to grant him everlasting life. Utnapishtims tells him he can have everlasting life if he can stay awake for 7 days Gilgamesh fails immediately and ends up going back to uruk but before he goes back utnapishtims tells Gilgamesh about a flower that restores youth , so Gilgamesh gets the flower but it gets stolen so he leaves with nothing but knowledge witch he shares with his people. The main character is Gilgamesh he is a hero, fiercest of warriors he is two thirds god one third human and has super natural abilities.. fter seeing his friend enkidu die he goes off on a quest to get him out of the house of dust and gain everlasting life. Gilgamesh had to prove himself many times in the story by defeating challenges that faced him , killing the bull of heaven, when utnapishtim told him to sleep for seven days, getting the flower that restores youth and fighting offa pack of lions that the gods sent after him. The was an abundant presence of mythical beings the sun god, enlil the god of earth ,wind and air, and anu the god of the sky. His journey takes him to supernatural places such as the underworld the twin peaked mountain called mashu and on a boat journey through the waters of death. The story reaches a low point when Gilgamesh’s’ friend enkidu dies also when he failed utnapishtims challenge to stay awake for a week. The resurrection of the story was when Gilgamesh was told about the flower that restores everlasting life. He returns to uruk after the flower was stolen by a snake with much wisdom that he shares with his people. Gilgamesh’s characteristics define him as a quest hero. He is two thirds god and one third mortal and he is the strongest of men, he is ruler of uruk , the greatest of warriors and ambitious builder Gilgamesh surrounded his city with magnificent walls and glorious ziggurats, he was physically beautiful, immensely strong, and very wise. Gilgamesh’s flaws and virtues are very oversized. He goes on an epic quest after his best friend dies. He visits places that are supernatural and cannot be visited by humans. he was faced with many challenges that he over came to complete his quest. Sumer was one of the earliest civilizations of the near ancient east, located in the southern part of Mesopotamia. The term sumerian refers to the people who speak the Sumerian language. Sumer ancient Egypt and indusvalley civilization were considered the first settled society in the world to have all the features needed to have a civilization. The history of Sumeria dates back to the beginning of writing and law which the Sumerians were accredited for inventing. And was essential for maintaining order within city-states. For centuries city states used Sumerian law, which established penalties for certain offenses. This represents recognition that society can’t function without respect for life, property and shared values. The Sumerians were non Semitic people and were at one time believed to have been invader, as a number of linguists believed they could possibly detect a substrate language beneath Sumerian. However, archeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the early unbaid period settlements in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian peoples farm land was mad fertile by slit deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. By the late fourth millennium B. C. E. , sumer was divided into about a dozen independent city states, whose limits were defined by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a temple dedicated to the particular patron deity of the city and ruled over by a priest and or king, who was tied to the city’s religious rites. The principle Sumerian sites were the cities of mari, agade, kish, borsippa, nippur , isin, adab, shuruppak, girsu lagash, ur and eridu . he minor cities wear sippar , kutha, dilbat, marad, kisurra , zabala, umma , kisiga, awan, hamazi, eshnunna akshak, and zimbir. The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistorical ubad and uruk periods. The historical record opens with early dynastic period from ca. the twenty ninth century B. C. E. , but remains scarce until the lagash period begins in the twenty sixith century. Classical sumer ends with akkadian empire in the twenty fourth century. Followed by the gutian period, there is a short â€Å"Sumerian renaissance† in the twenty second, cut short in ca. 000 B. C. E. by Amorite invasions. The Amorite â€Å"dynasty of isin† persists until ca. 1730 B. C. E. when Mesopotamia is united under Babylonian rule. Recapping my essay Gilgamesh is an epic about the ruler of uruk who went on a quest to find everlasting life but in the end Gilgamesh did not find everlasting life. His characteristics match that of an epic hero and the sumer civilization was one of the first civilizations to have all the essentials to be a civilization and the Sumerians were credited for inventing writing and law and wear a great civilization.

Differences between law and equity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Differences between law and equity - Essay Example It mainly came out of feudal customs. On the other side Equity came from Roman law and Canon Law. Common law also differs with Equity in the sense that Equity comprised of the principles of rules administered by the Court of Chancery and consisted of that portion of natural justice which, although of a nature suitable for judicial enforcement, was for historical reasons not enforced by the common Law Courts. There is also another difference that the defects and rigidity of the old Common Law gave rise to Equity. Underhill has very well summarized the difference between Common Law and Equity in these words: - "Equity was originally the revolt of Commonsense against the pedantry of Law, and trammels of the feudal system, it became highly artificial refined body of legal principles and is at present day an amendment and modification of the Common Law" 2. The Plaintiff used to go to the Common Law Courts as a matter of right while the person seeking relief in the Court of Chancery humbly prayed for the benefit of the Court's grace by invoking the exercise of its prerogative. Thus, it was the discretion of the equity Court (i.e. Chancery Court) to give remedies to the petitioner or not. 3. 3. In Common law Courts the misconduct of the plaintiff did not disentitle him to claim legal relief but in the Court of Chancery misconduct of the plaintiff was taken as a sufficient ground for the refusal of equitable reliefs. 1. A. Ahmad, Equity and Trusts, p 36 2. Osborne Law dictionaries 3. Ibid. 4. The pronouncement of the Common Law Courts altered the legal title to the property as between the parties to the action but the Chancery Court bound the person only by its decree, directing him to transfer the legal title by executing a conveyance. 5. Common Law sprang from feudal customs, while equity sprang from Roman andCanon law 6. Common Law involved a complicated procedure of tendering evidence. But theCourts of Chancery had no procedural complication evidence. 7. In common law courts, judges used to preside over, while in courts of equity thepresiding officer was the Chancellor being a judge. 8. Common law was generated by the forms of action, and that forms of actioncombined substance and procedure while, a writ, obtained from chancery,structured according to a fixed form, and initiated a cause of action. 9. Common law was rigid and limited while, equity law was flexible. 10. The court of equity flourished independently of the common law courts. "Justice" could be dispensed in Chancery. The most powerful device available to the court of equity was the injunction--to forbid,

Maritime Logistics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Maritime Logistics - Essay Example Maritime logistics industry itself is going through a very subtle but important change which will make it critical for the leading industry players to prepare them strategically in such a manner that can allow them to develop sustainable and progressive businesses in largely volatile business environment. Our target company which emerged from being a small player to one of the key international player only because of the management of the most important key drivers in such a manner that it allowed to develop its strengths and potential to dominate the market. The fact that company has been able to withstand the pressures of the current financial crisis itself is one of the ample proofs of how a successful company can actually sustain the external pressures and develop its internal strengths to achieve the success. Some of the issues that have been discussed in part 1 of this report focused on the understanding of the basic characteristics of the industry as well as to study and understand as to how the company has been working over the period of time and what are some of the risk factors that can contribute towards increasing the overall risk of the investment opportunity. As such there is a need to have a broader understanding of the factors identified in part 1 of this report so that a comprehensive and to the point understanding of the critical success factors can be developed for making better and more informed decisions. Our target company is also one of the firms which has been able to successfully withstand the economic pressures because of the fact that it has strategically developed itself to a point where it is relatively more stable and resilient against the changes in economic conditions. The target firm therefore is one of such firms which will contribute positively towards value creation if all the risk factors and critical issues are factored in accordingly. Some of the issues that have been discussed in

Alternative Fuel Vehicles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Alternative Fuel Vehicles - Essay Example Later, with the invention of compression ignition engine (commonly called Diesel Engine), light fuel oil, obtained from fractional distillation of crude oil, became a source of energy for urban transport vehicle. Today most of the cars run on these two above mentioned fuels courtesy their high energy contents and easy availability. Before moving into the details of alternative fuels available today, we briefly discuss the reasons, which led the automotive industries and governments to discourage conventional fuels and invest in alternative technologies. The main factor that triggered governments’ interest in alternative fuel research was the oil crisis of 1973 and 1979 which was followed by a steep rise in oil prices. Moreover, the increase in green house gases (GHG) emission and other environment concerns have caused the governments to discourage use of conventional fuels and promote the use of alternative fuels with no or very low GHG emission. Scientists and researchers have worked on different cost effective and environment friendly alternatives of gasoline and diesel oil that can be used in commercial vehicles efficiently. The most popular of them being ethanol and other bio-fuels, natural gas, propane or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), hydrogen, batteries (electrical energy) and compressed air. These are discussed in the following paragraphs. The most popular of alternative fuels are the bio fuels and among them, ethanol. First vehicle to run on ethanol was Ford Model T in 1908. The recent developments in the technology to use ethanol as alternative fuel started in 1970s due to the oil price hike. Ethanol is mostly used as a blend with gasoline. Special engines called flexible fuel engines are developed to use these blended fuels. These vehicles can run on fuels having 10%, 15% or up to 85% by volume ethanol concentration (called E10, E15, E85 respectively). Use of blended fuels decreases green house gas emissions

FREE MOVEMENT OF PERSONS IN EU LOW Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

FREE MOVEMENT OF PERSONS IN EU LOW - Essay Example nce of the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) ruling was. In Defrenne, the individual acted against a condition in her contract of employment that required her to retire at the age of 40, whilst male employees continued up to the age of 55. She pleaded her defense on the basis of Article 141 of the Treaty of Amsterdam (then Article 119), guaranteeing equal pay for equal work. The fundamental problem at hand was whether the provision could be enforced horizontally- against a private party by such a party- as Sabena Airline was classified as a private party, albeit with the state as a majority shareholder, on the basis that it was constituted under private law, and with staff under private contracts of employment. However, the ECJ held that Article 141 did have direct effect so that the equal pay principle applied to contractual relations between employer and employee in a Member States. This was on the grounds that 'Article 119 is a mandatory in nature'. But because of a general principle of legal certainty, there could not be direct effect for retrospective applications, thus only claims for equal pay already brought at the date of the Defrenne judgment could be pursued in national courts. The Defrenne case also provides an example of the court interpreting the Van Gend En Loos conditions for direct effect flexibly. Article 141 states that 'the application of the principle that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work', and this was deemed to lack sufficient precision to be invoked by a private party and enforced by a national court. This is on the basis that it did not impose a precise negative obligation on the Member States- or Belgium in this case- nor did it provide a clear definition of terms such as 'priciple' or 'pay' or 'equal work'.5 However, the case retains its credibility as the court segregated the principle of equal work, within the article, with the factual uncertainties regarding the terms stipulated. Indeed, the case shows a clear determination by the courts to ensure tht the EC's aims were not ignored by laggard Member States. As a conclusion, therefore, the aforementioned considerations portray that Defrenne was successful in her claims, and the court did give priority to the social, rather than economic, aims of Aritcle 141, upholding 'one of the fundamental human rights', and therefore pursing its obligation to ensure the respect of such rights.6 The case of Baudet7 was another case relying on the success of the Defrenne claim. However, Defrenne was only successful in claiming the first of her three claims- that in respect of wages paid to her during her employment by Sabena. The other two, the indemnity paid to her at the termination of her employment and her pension rights could not be claimed as the court deemed that

Analyzing two art work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Analyzing two art work - Essay Example These include 91 steps from each side besides the top whereby in total comprise the 365 days of a full year, hence its structure was more symbolic than mere external depictions. In addition, people deemed this pyramid was a physical depiction of the link, which they had with Kukulkan (feathered snake) (Bilsen 594). The community held that Chichen Itza Pyramid acted as their source of economic power owing to its central purpose, which encompassed making sacrifices meant to appease their gods. The entire building besides having a pyramid shape, it comprised of 91 steps on its four sides and one at the top. These make up 365 steps, which is a symbol of Mayan calendar, which they used to predict various seasons. Besides, there are also stairways on the sides running from top to bottom characterized by feathered snake engravings. The expression of culture is evident from the pyramid’s various structures besides its symbolism of the Mayan calendar (Lopata 28). For illustration, inside chambers that acted as places for offering sacrifices when appeasing to their gods for rain or other favors. Hence, the entire community held an immense veneration for its spiritual beings, which the community deemed possessed unsurpassed power meant to manipulate their environment. Besides, various chambers inside the structure depict both the social and political array of the Mayan community (Lopata 28). Both the Djenne Mosque and Chichen Itza Pyramid acted as centers meant for worship by their respective communities, though the latter utilized human sacrifices (Gardner & Kleiner 400). Besides, the two structure’s builders did not utilize the same materials for their constructions. Mosque’s dominant material was mud bricks, whereas Chichen Itza Pyramid carved stones besides occupying large area (Gardner & Kleiner 400). The structure was a temple

Summarise the following papers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Summarise the following papers - Essay Example is study by Jere (2004) who sought to review audit failure rates, costs of auditing, audit report research, auditor differentiation and audit quality, big-firm small-firm dichotomy, and the role of audit research in policy making. The paper began with a review of outright audit failure rates. It posited that an outright audit failure occurs when GAAPs are not enforced by the auditor and when an auditor fails to issue a modified or qualified audit report when the circumstances are appropriate. The failure renders the reports misleading to the users. Where does audit failure rate data come from? This question is also answered by Jere (2004) as the paper defines audit failure rate using business failure rates – failures of publicly listed companies. Another audit failure could be observed from consent decrees from the reports of Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAER). Further, the paper explains that data for audit failure rates could also be sourced from earnings restatements. The study found that the audit failure rates with significant economic consequences were infrequent, accounting for less than 1% annually. Jere (2004) also tackled the issue of audit fees and whether auditing was costly. The paper also found that audit fees were low at less than 0.1% of the client sales. The paper argues correctly that the fact that the auditing costs are very low does not necessarily suggest that the quality of audits is also low given that the audit failure rates are also very low. Auditing is therefore inexpensive. Jere’s (2004) meta-analysis revealed that despite the false positives and negatives, the audit reports were informative and therefore the audit quality was high. The author noted that auditors are not always accurate in their reporting and this can reduce the audit quality. Auditors tend to report more conservatively (false positives) but mostly fail to get it right when it matters (false negatives). What the false positives and negatives do is

History of the game Essay Example for Free

History of the game Essay As the rackets of the game have changed, the style of play has changed accordingly. During the wooden racket era, before the flood of the metal and metal composite rackets, players hit groundstrokes with slight topspin but mostly flat or with underspin, particularly on the backhand side. To provide the players with the underspin or flat shots, players hit with an eastern grip (slightly east of the continental style grip achieved by sliding the V area between the thumb and index finger down the side of the frame to the grip) to help generate slice and handle low balls better. Players used this style of play to compensate for the lower bounce produced on grass courts compared to the bounce of hard and clay courts today. In effect, groundstrokes had to be long and fluid with early preparation and a long follow through to get the necessary power and control by swinging the heavier wooden rackets.  Players with wooden rackets also stood sideways to the ball and stepped into the swing to generate more power. Furthermore, the small sweetspot of the wooden racket required players to have more exact, controlled swings instead of the quick, powerful, whip-like swings of todays players. As an example, John McEnroe, a former tennis professional and Grand Slam winner, supports wooden rackets saying: I have been a proponent of the wood racketwood rackets would bring back skill and finesse to the game and would make the points longer and more fun to watch. And I could watch all those young guys cry like that little baby doll that wets herself as they try to return a serve with a 15-ounce piece of lumber. (McEnroe 1).  As a result, players could not end the point with a single shot like today and therefore games consisted of more rallies. The rackets and styles of play have evolved to the 21st Century and have dramatically changed the way tennis is played. Instead of the long and fluid groundstrokes used with wooden rackets, lighter more powerful rackets have developed quick, short but powerful swings by tennis players today. The players also use a more western or semi-western grip (achieved by placing the racket on the ground and coming from straight above, picking the racket up with one hand). These grips tend to generate more power and topspin as well make it easier to hit high bouncing balls. This heavy topspin usually causes points to end more quickly with more winners and harder shots. These changes in the game are all in relation to the development of higher bouncing courts, hard courts and clay courts, and the shorter grass court tournament season. Also, as a result to the more powerful modern rackets, serves were consistently hit over 100 mph and many clocked at more than 120 mph contributing to the quicker points. Furthermore, many serves were unreturnable meaning that it would be almost impossible for players to return or even more to hit the ball with the racket. The change in rackets in the 20th Century was not only limited to a change in the game but the tennis market was affected as well. According to Edward Tenner, the new rackets were not as profitable for racket manufacturers as the wooden rackets were during the peak in tennis popularity in the early 1970s (Tenner 3). However, shortly following this rapid growth in tennis popularity, tenniss popularity among the common people started to decline. According to the records of the Tennis Industry Association, two years before the introduction of the Prince racket in 1974, the number of tennis players reached its peak and then started a decline (Tenner 1). Later, the sale of tennis balls was evaluated and showed a drop in tennis ball usage between 1990 and 1993 (Tenner 3). A short explanation of this event could be that players were not ready to pay the higher price for newer metal rackets. The modern rackets, costing about $150, were much more expensive compared to the lower price of wooden rackets in the early 1970s. However, the introduction of the modern rackets produced a larger selection of varying rackets for tennis consumers shown in the following excerpt from Tennis Magazine, To play your best tennis, your racket has to complement your game. And with more frames than ever being designed for specific types of players, finding that magic wand has never been easier. (2001 Racket Guide 1) In addition, modern rackets are designed for all different types of players including strictly baseliners to serve and volleyers. Mark Macky, Dunlops director of racket sports, shows this in the following statement, Its no longer enough to make a racket for one ability level beginner, intermediate, advanced. Today, companies make rackets that are targeted to specific styles of play. A serve and volleyer, for example, will want a different type of racket than a baseliner. (2001 Racket Guide 1) Although while racket manufacturers may have suffered from the introduction of modern rackets, consumers seem to benefit. According to New York Times newspaper, the new metal rackets prove to last longer and need restringing less often saving consumers money (Tenner 3). Furthermore, metal rackets can last up to ten years or more contrary to the wooden rackets that were damaged by age, warping, and cracking.  In conclusion, although many tennis professionals believe that wooden rackets would increase the charisma of tennis, there is undeniable evidence that proves modern rackets to be better for the game and all levels of players. Newer rackets provide more options for tennis players, giving them more power and control than ever before therefore elevating the level of play in the game of tennis. They also appeal to lower levels of players making the game easier to learn and in effect, better for everyone. In addition, although the market seemed to be falling, it is currently rising for the game of tennis and showing this, the U.S. Open has had more viewers in the year of 2001 than ever before in the history of the game.

Pakistan Monetary policy effectiveness in controlling inflation

Pakistan Monetary policy effectiveness in controlling inflation Inflation adversely affects the overall growth, the financial sector development and the vulnerable poor segment of the population. There is clear consensus that even moderate levels of inflation damage real growth Inflation decreases the real income and also induces uncertainty. Considering such adverse impacts of inflation on the economy, there is a consensus among the worlds leading central banks that the price stability is the prime objective of monetary policy and the central banks are committed to the low inflation. Hence the central banks have adopted inflation as the main focus of monetary policy, targeting inflation explicitly or implicitly as and when required. Motive The objective of the thesis is to investigate the linkage between the excess money supply growth and inflation in Pakistan and to test the validity of the monetarist stance that inflation is a monetary phenomenon. The thesis will examine that whether the monetary policy adopted has been effective to control the rate of inflation. In my thesis I would like to analyze the money supply and inflation rates in Pakistan in order to prove the hypothesis. Hypothesis Hypothesis 1 Null Hypothesis: Monetary policy is effective in controlling inflation in Pakistan. Alternative Hypothesis: Monetary policy is not effective in controlling inflation in Pakistan. Hypothesis 2 Null Hypothesis: Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Alternate Hypothesis: Inflation is not a monetary phenomenon. Introduction This paper examines the role played by the monetary policy in controlling prices. Whether the policy makers have been successful in predicting the behavior of prices effectively or not. For this purpose the model is considered having monetary variables like monetary assets and monetary expansion and inflation as a dependent variable. The model is estimated for the period of 1950-2005. It tries to measure the effective of monetary policy during different regimes. The results indicate that correlation between monetary assets and inflation is not that strong for Pakistan which means that the monetary policy has not been that effective in predicting the price movements in Pakistan. There is a strong need for adjustments by the policy makers. Another result that I got from the study is that monetary expansion and inflation are related significantly and they tend to determine the direction of one another at times but inflation is also related to other factors. These days economies of all countries whether underdeveloped, developing as well developed suffers from inflation. Inflation or persistent rising prices are major problem today in world. Because of many reasons, first, the rate of inflation these years are much high than experienced earlier periods. Second, Inflation in these years coexists with high rate of unemployment, which is a new phenomenon and made it difficult to control inflation. Economic policies tend to increase the general public welfare and monetary policy supports this broad objective by focusing its efforts to promote price stability. The objective of monetary policy in Pakistan, as laid down in the SBP Act of 1956, is to achieve the targets of inflation and growth set annually by the Government. In recent years money supply increased rapidly and some researchers thought this increase in money supply was going to translate quickly into inflation. But inflation did not grow much and empirical evidence shows that shocks to the petrol and meat supply mainly affected inflation. In the long-run the relationship between money supply and price is very strong and their correlation is almost one. Lucas (1995) emphasized the long-term relationship between money and prices in his Nobel Prize lecture by mentioning McCandless and Weber (1995). For the short-term relationship, empirical evidence of relationship between money growth and inflation is weak and unclear. A variety of studies on money demand yield very dissimilar results. As result, it is difficult to establish a straight relationship between these two variables in the short-term. This paper tries to measure the relationship between money growth and inflation for Pakistan. The paper consists of following sections: Introduction, The need to control inflation and the monetary policy in Pakistan, Literature Review, Empirical results, conclusion and recommendations. The need to control inflation Price stability is key to long run growth prospects. Effective management and prediction inflation expectations is required to ensure that the prices are stable. With stable prices, economic decisions can be made with less uncertainty and therefore markets can function without concern about unpredictable fluctuations in the purchasing power of money. On the other hand, high and unanticipated inflation lowers the quality of the signals coming from the price system as producers and consumers find it difficult to distinguish price changes arising from changes in the supply and demand for products from changes arising from the high level of general inflation. High inflation lowers the effectiveness of the market system. High and unanticipated inflation makes it impossible to plan for relatively longer outlook, creating incentives for households and firms to shorten their decision horizons and to spend resources in managing inflation risks rather than focusing on the most productive activities. The competing goals of growth and price stability, which may seem to be at odds with each other, in fact boils down to a single objective i.e. price stability. In this backdrop, there is no surprise that most of the central banks aim at maintaining low and stable inflation. Central banks place more weight and demonstrate increased willingness on controlling inflation relative to output growth, and financial and exchange rate stability. Effectiveness of monetary policy in Pakistan Generally, historical evidence does reflect that Pakistan has been a high inflation and high interest economy given its inherent structural weaknesses. The role and effectiveness of monetary policy appears more visible in the 2000s when financial sector reforms started bearing fruits in terms of a more market based money and foreign exchange markets. Entering the 21st century, the loose monetary policy stance in the face of low inflation, low growth and low twin deficits, along with structural measures to open up the economy and alleviate some first round constraints, triggered the economy on a long term growth trajectory of above 7 percent. Monetary policy stance was however altered as the inflationary pressures started to build up in 2005. At the end of the fiscal year, the economy, which had been showing sustained steady growth since FY01, registered a historically high level of growth (9 percent), average inflation rose sharply (9.3 percent) and the external current account balance turned into deficit (-1.4 percent of GDP). Coinciding with these developments, the fiscal module started to show signs of stress as the fiscal balance was converted into a deficit and the stock of external debt and liabilities, which had been declining since FY00 after the Paris Club rescheduling, began increasing. These indicators largely capture the high and growing aggregate demand in the economy on account of sustained increase in peoples income. With the emerging domestic and global price pressures, SBP tightened its monetary policy after a prolonged gap of a few years. The efforts to rein-in inflation, however, proved less effective due to a rebound in international commodity prices and a rise in domestic food bearing fruits in terms of a more market based money and foreign exchange markets. Entering the 21st century, the loose monetary policy stance in the face of low inflation, low growth and low twin deficits, along with structural measures to open up the economy and alleviate some first round constraints, triggered the economy on a long term growth trajectory of above 7 percent. Realizing the complications of monetary management and adverse global and domestic economic developments, the implementation of SBP monetary policy during FY06 varied significantly from the preceding fiscal years. In addition to the rise in the policy rate, the central bank focused on the short-end of the yield curve, draining excess liquidity from the inter-bank money market and pushing up short-tenor rates. Consequently, not only did the overnight rates remain close to the discount rate through most of the year, the volatility in these rates also declined. These tight monetary conditions along with the Governments administrative measures to control food inflation helped in scaling down average inflation from 9.3 percent in FY05 to 7.9 percent in FY06, within the 8.0 percent annual target. For FY07, the government set an inflation target of 6.5 percent. To achieve this, a further moderation in aggregate demand during FY07 was required as the core inflation witnessed a relatively smaller decline in FY06, indicating that demand-side inflationary pressures were strong. In this perspective, SBP further tightened its monetary policy in July 2006 raising the CRR and SLR for the scheduled banks; and its policy rate by 50 basis points (bps) to 9.5 percent. Moreover, proactive liquidity management helped in transmitting the monetary tightening signals to key interest rates in the economy. For instance, the Karachi Inter Bank Offer Rate (KIBOR) of 6 month tenor increased from 9.6 percent in June 2006 to 10.02 percent at end-June 2007 and the banks weighted average lending and deposits rates (on outstanding amount) increased by 0.93 percentage points and 1.1 percentage points, respectively, during FY07. In retrospect, it appears evident that monetary tightening in FY07 did not put any adverse impact on economic growth, as not only was the real GDP growth target of 7.0 percent for FY07 was met; the growth was quite broad based. At the same time, the impact of the monetary tightening was most evident in the continued deceleration in core inflation during FY07. One measure of core inflation, the non-food non-energy CPI, continued its downtrend from YoY high of 7.8 percent in October 2005, to 6.3 percent at end-FY06, and to 5.1 percent by the end of FY07. However, much of the gains from the tight monetary policy on overall CPI inflation were offset by the unexpected rise in food inflation. On the downside, however, broad money supply (M2) grew by 19.3 percent during FY07, exceeding the annual target by 5.8 percentage points. Slippages in money supply growth largely stemmed from an expansion in NFA due to the higher than expected foreign exchange inflows. The pressure from the fiscal account was due to mismatch in its external budgetary inflows and expenditures. With the privatization inflows and the receipts from a sovereign debt offering at end-FY07, the Government managed to end the year with retirement of central bank borrowings, on the margin. By end-FY07, SBP holdings of government papers were still around Rs 452 billion, despite a net retirement of Rs 56.0 billion during the year. Another major aberration in FY07 emanated from the high level of SBP refinancing extended, for both working capital and long-term investment, to exporters. Aside from monetary management complexities, these schemes have been distorting the incentive structure in the economy. FY08 was an exceptionally difficult year. The domestic macroeconomic and political vulnerabilities coupled with a very challenging global environment caused slippages in macroeconomic targets by a wide margin. After a relatively long period of macroeconomic stability and prosperity, the global economy faced multifarious challenges: (i) hit by the sub prime mortgage crisis in U.S in 2007, the international financial markets had been in turmoil, the impact of which was felt across markets and continents; (ii) rising global commodity prices, with crude oil and food staples prices skyrocketing; and (iii) a gradual slide in the U.S dollar against major currencies. Combination of these events induced a degree of recessionary tendencies and inflationary pressures across developed and developing countries. Policy-makers were gripped with the dual challenge of slowdown in growth and unprecedented rising inflationary pressures. The external current account deficit and fiscal deficit widened considerably to unsustainable level (8.4 and 7.4 percent of GDP). The subsidy payments worth Rs 407 billion by Government, which account for almost half of the fiscal deficit, shielded domestic consumers from high international POL and commodity prices and distorted the natural demand adjustment mechanism. While the government passed on price increase to consumers, the rising international oil and other importable prices continued to take a toll on the economy. Rising demand has cost the country dearly in terms of foreign exchange spent on importing large volumes of these commodities. Rising fiscal deficit and lower than required financing flows resulted in exceptional recourse of the Government to the highly inflationary central bank borrowing for financing deficit. At the same time the surge in imports persisted. As a result, inflation accelerated and its expectations strengthened due to pass through of international oil prices to the domestic market, increases in the electricity tariff and the general sales tax, and rising exchange rate depreciation. These developments resulted in a further rise in headline as well as core inflation (20 percent weighted trimmed measure) to 25 percent and 21.7 percent respectively in October 2008. Considering the size of macroeconomic imbalances and the emerging inflationary pressures, SBP remained committed to achieve price stability over the medium term and thus had to launch steeper monetary tightening to tame the demand pressures and restore macroeconomic stability in FY09. SBP thus increased the policy rate from 13.5 to 15 percent. Literature Review If inflation is considered as a monetary phenomenon then it is the responsibility of the central bank and the fiscal authorities to achieve price stability. If inflation is caused primarily by food price increases, it would appear that the Ministry of Agriculture should play a key role in containing inflation. Analysis of Money, Inflation and growth in Pakistan (Abdul Qayyum) shows that excess money supply growth has been an important contributor to the rise in inflation in Pakistan during the study period, the study used Correlation analysis with the Country of study being Pakistan. In my research I will try to find the correlation between the monetary assets and inflation, and determine whether the policy makers have been successful to use monetary assets as a measure to predict interest rates. Economic Growth, Inflation, and Monetary Policy in Pakistan: Preliminary Empirical Estimates AHMED M. KHALID*states the State Bank of Pakistanis also under pressure to discuss and design a policy that could provide a stable and sustainable economic growth as well as address the necessary conditions to be part of the global economy. Is Inflation in Pakistan a Monetary Phenomenon (M. ALI KEMAL) finds that an increase in money supply over the long-run results in higher rate of inflation and thus provides support for the quantity theory of money. It establishes that inflation is essentially a monetary phenomenon. However, the money supply does not instantly influence the price levels; the impact of money supply on inflation has a considerable lag of about 9 months. While the study shows that the money supply works through the system in less than a year, it also points out that the system takes rather long to converge to equilibrium if shocks appear in any of the three variables, viz., GDP, money supply, and prices. Primary objective of this research is to check the long-run relationship and short-run dynamics between the money and inflation. In the long run money supply impacts the inflation rates. QTM holds in the long Run, which implies that inflation is a monetary phenomenon. In the short run, the impact of money on inflation is not instant; it affects inflation with lags of about 3 quarters. In the long-run the relationship between money supply and price is very strong and their correlation is almost one. Lucas (1995) emphasized the long-term relationship between money and prices in his Nobel Prize lecture by mentioning McCandless and Weber (1995). Certainly in the long run, inflation is considered to be-as Friedman (1963) stated-always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. However, other authors have pointed to supply-side developments in explaining inflation. This structuralist school of thought holds that supply constraints that drive up prices of specific goods can have wider repercussions on the overall price level. In Pakistan, increases in the wheat support price have been blamed for inflation. As such, the question money or wheat is not merely academic, but has profound implications for economic policy. If inflation is a monetary phenomenon, it is the responsibility of the central bank and the fiscal authorities to achieve price stability. If inflation is caused primarily by wheat support price increases, it would appear that the Ministry of Agriculture should play a key role in containing inflation. In this paper, I would study the relationship between inflation and monetary expansion, to prove that it is not entirely a monetary phenomenon but it is affected by other factors as well. Data Sources and limitations The data covers the period 1950-2005 on a yearly basis. The choice of sample enables us to study the long run relationship between money supply and inflation and short run effects. The period covers the whole monetary policy stance under different rules, and then we also analyze it in periods of different economic growth. We use annual data from 1949-50 to 2004-2005 to investigate the relations between money and prices in Pakistan. The principal data source is 50 Years of Pakistan in Statistics; prepared by the Federal Bureau of Statistics. The other data sources include the regular issues of Economic Survey by Finance Division and Monthly Bulletin by State Bank. Before proceeding further, i would like to point out that the analysis is based on fifty years of Pakistan during which the country has undergone a series of economic and political changes. In particular, there have been significant improvements in the monetary sector as well as its impact on economy in the 1990s. Methodology The tests used will be Correlation Regression Graphical Analysis Model The model used would analyze the inflation against two variables of money supply monetary expansion and monetary assets. Money supply is considered as independent variable. Inflation is considered as dependent variable. Empirical Results Correlation test The correlation between monetary assets and inflation during entire 50 year periods has been as such For a perfect correlation the correlation coefficient should have been + 1 but in this case the correlation coefficient is coming out to be 0.034 which is very near to 0 which shows that the monetary policy is not being effective in predicting the rates of inflation. In the long run money supply is able to determine inflation but in short term it is determined much by the other factors of economy. The linear relationship between monetary assets and inflation is not that strong. There is small correlation which means in the long run it is effective but not in the short run. For effective monetary policy the correlation between money supply and inflation should be one but here the correlation is much less and is nearer to O. Regression Test between monetary assets and inflation This table displays R, R squared, adjusted R squared, and the standard error. R is the correlation between the observed and predicted values of the dependent variable. The values of R range from -1 to 1. The sign of R indicates the direction of the relationship (positive or negative). The absolute value of R indicates the strength, with larger absolute values indicating stronger relationships. R squared is the proportion of variation in the dependent variable explained by the regression model. The values of R squared range from 0 to 1. Small values indicate that the model does not fit the data well. Here the model doesnt fit the data well the R square is very small. The larger the F The larger the F (the smaller the p-value) the more of ys variation the line explained so the less likely H0 is true. We reject when the p-value The F statistic is the regression mean square (MSR) divided by the residual mean square (MSE). If the significance value of the F statistic is small (smaller than say 0.05) then the independent variables do a good job explaining the variation in the dependent variable. If the significance value of F is larger than 0.05 then the independent variables do not explain the variation in the dependent variable. Here the F value is greater that 0.05 which means it is not explaining the dependent variable. Inflation= 6.504 + 0.00* monetary assets The beta coefficient tells how strongly independent variable is related with dependent variable. R2 is a statistic that will give some information about the goodness of fit of a model. In regression, the R2 coefficient of determination is a statistical measure of how well the regression line approximates the real data points. An R2 of 1.0 indicates that the regression line perfectly fits the data. The variation explained by monetary assets in inflation is not much which tells us that the policy has not been that effective. The correlation between the monetary assets and the inflation has not been much significant. Monetary expansion and inflation has significant relationship and at times one determine the other this means that we have to accept hypothesis that it is a monetary phenomenon but add that it is affected by other factors as well like oil and food prices. Why Inflation is alarming and needs to be controlled High and persistent inflation is a regressive tax adversely impacting the poor and economic prospects. The poor hold few real assets or equity, and their savings are typically in the form of cash or low-interest bearing deposits; this group is most vulnerable to inflation as it erodes savings. Moreover, high and volatile inflation has been found to be detrimental to growth and financial sector development. High inflation obscures the role of relative price changes thus inhibiting optimal resource allocation. Inflation hurts growth once it exceeds a certain threshold. A number of empirical studies have established that the relationship between inflation and growth is nonlinear. At low levels of inflation, inflation has either no impact or a positive impact on growth. However, once inflation exceeds a certain threshold, it has an adverse impact on long-run growth. High inflation also inhibits financial development. Financial market institutions are intermediaries that reduce frictions between savers and investors (including adverse selection, moral hazard, or conflicting time preferences). Inflation makes this intermediation more costly because inflation tax lowers long-run real returns. As a result, credit is rationed and financial depth is reduced. As in the case of growth, there appears to be a threshold beyond which inflation adversely affects financial sector developments, while there are no negative effects at low levels of inflation. The adverse effect of inflation on financial development is one mechanism by which inflation can hurt growth. For example, Loayza and Ranciere (2005) find a positive long-run relationship between financial development and growth in a sample of 75 countries. In Pakistan, periods of low inflation are associated with high growth rates and vice versa. Between 1978 and 1991, inflation was 8 percent on average and real per capita growth averaged 3 percent. Between 1992 and 1997, inflation increased on average to 11 percent, while real per capita growth fell substantially and averaged only 1 percent. Finally, between 1998, inflation was reduced again to an average of 5 percent, and real per capita growth displayed a dramatic recovery. Of course, there are other factors that determine growth in the short-run and in the long-run [e.g. van Rooden (2005)]. Nonetheless, Pakistans growth performance has been best when inflation was contained to 8 percent or lower. Conclusion Hypothesis 1 Null Hypothesis: Monetary policy is effective in controlling inflation in Pakistan. Alternative Hypothesis: Monetary policy is not effective in controlling inflation in Pakistan. Result: Reject Null Hypothesis and Accept Alternate Hypothesis. Hypothesis 2 Null Hypothesis: Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Alternate Hypothesis: Inflation is not a monetary phenomenon. Result: We accept our hypothesis but add here that inflation in Pakistan is not entirely a monetary phenomenon, it is a monetary phenomenon in long run, but in short run it is affected by other factors as well like food and oil prices. The rejection of first hypothesis shows that there need to be steps taken by policy makers to combat the inflation rates. The empirical results presented in this paper show that monetary factors determine inflation in Pakistan. Broad money growth and private sector credit growth are the key variables that explain inflation developments with a lag of around 12 months. A long-run relationship exists between the CPI and private sector credit. The food price affects inflation in the short run, but not in the long run. Recommendations The following areas need attention and are key for effective monetary management. Effectiveness of monetary and fiscal coordination would be helpful. For effective analysis of developments and policy making, timely and quality information is extremely important. Information is not available with desired frequency and timeliness. Also there are concerns over the quality of data. Unlike many developed and developing countries, data on quarterly GDP, employment and wages, etc. is not available in case of Pakistan. Moreover, the data on key macroeconomic variables is usually available with substantial lags. This constrains an in-depth analysis of the current economic situation and evolving trends, and hinders the ability of the SBP to develop a forward-looking policy stance. Unlike many countries, both developed and developing, there is no prescribed limit on government borrowing from SBP. Borrowing from the central bank injects liquidity in the system through increased currency in circulation and deposits of the government with the banks. In both cases, the impact of tight monetary stance is diluted as this automatic creation of money increases money supply without any prior notice. Improve the effectiveness of monetary policy is to prohibit the practice of government borrowings from the SBP. Another issue is to make a clear distinction between exchange rate management and monetary management. It is impossible to pursue an independent monetary and exchange rate policy as well as allowing capital to move freely across the border. Since the SBP endeavors to achieve price stability through achieving monetary targets by changes in the policy rate, it is not possible to maintain exchange rates at some level with free capital mobility. This can only be achieved by putting complete restrictions on capital movements, which is not possible. SBPs responsibility is to ensure an environment where foreign exchange flows are driven by economic fundamental and are not mis-guided by rent seeking speculation. In conclusion, it is imperative that above steps be taken urgently. Over the period, however, this needs to be complemented with much deeper structural reforms to synchronize and reform the medium term planning for the budget and monetary policy formulation process. Several studies and technical assistance have provided extensive guidance in this area, but the lack of capacities and short term compulsions have often withheld such reforms. What is important is to recognize that a medium term development strategy, independently worked out, would help minimize one agency interest which has often been a source of coordination difficulties. It would also help the budget making process more rule based than the incrementally driven process to satisfy conflicting demands.

Objectives of Standard Costing

Objectives of Standard Costing What is the definition of standard costing? Standard costing is the system of using standard costs. Standard costing involves using the predetermined costs/standard costs to compare with the actual to find the difference or variance. Variance can be adverse (actual result is worse than standard) or favorable (actual result is better than standard). An adverse variance tells management that if everything else stays constant the companys actual profit will be less than planned. Whereas, a favorable variance tells management that if everything else stays constant the actual profit will likely exceed the planned profit. What are the major objectives of standards costing? What are types of cost standards? The standard is the level of attainment accepted by management as the basis upon which standard costs are determined. There are four different standards to consider which are current standard, ideal standard, basic standard and normal standard. A current standard is a standard which is established for use over a short period of time and is related to current condition. It reflects the performance that should be attained during the current period. The period for current standard is normally one year. It is presumed that conditions of production will remain unchanged. In case there is any change in price or manufacturing condition, the standards are also revised. Current standard may be ideal standard and expected standard. However, ideal standard is the standard which represents a high level of efficiency. Ideal standard is fixed on the assumption that favorable conditions will prevail and management will be at its best. The price paid for materials will be lowest and wastes etc. will be minimum possible. The labor time for making the production will be minimum and rates of wages will also be low. The overheads expenses are also set with maximum efficiency in mind. All the conditions, both internal and external, should be favorable and only then ideal standard will be achieved. Ideal standard is fixed on the assumption of those conditions which may rarely exist. This standard is not practicable and may not be achieved. Though this standard may not be achieved, even then an effort is made. The deviation between targets and actual performance is ignorable. In practice, ideal standard has an adverse effect on the employees. They do not try to reach the standard because the standards are not considered realistic. Third standard which is basic standard may be defined as a standard which is established for use for an indefinite period which may a long period. Basic standard is established for a long period and is not adjusted to the preset conations. The same standard remains in force for a long period. These standards are revised only on the changes in specification of material and technology productions. It is indeed just like a number against which subsequent process changes can be measured. Basic standard enables the measurement of changes in costs. For example, if the basic cost for material is Rs. 20 per unit and the current price is Rs. 25 per unit, it will show an increase of 25% in the cost of materials. The changes in manufacturing costs can be measured by taking basic standard, as a base standard cannot serve as a tool for cost control purpose because the standard is not revised for a long time. The deviation between standard cost and actual cost cannot be used as a yardstick for measuring efficiency. The last one is normal standard. As per terminology, normal standard has been defined as a standard which, it is anticipated, can be attained over a future period of time, preferably long enough to cover one trade cycle. This standard is based on the conditions which will cover a future period of five years, concerning one trade cycle. If a normal cycle of ups and downs in sales and production is 10 years, then standard will be set on average sales and production which will cover all the years. The standard attempts to cover variance in the production from one time to another time. An average is taken from the periods of recession and depression. The normal standard concept is theoretical and cannot be used for cost control purpose. Normal standard can be properly applied for absorption of overhead cost over a long period of time. What are the advantages and disadvantages of standard costing system? Standard costing have several advantages. First advantage of standard costing is as a key element in a management by exception approach. If costs remain within the standards, managers can focus on other issues. When costs fall significantly outside the standards, managers are alerted that there may be problems requiring attention. This approach helps managers focus on important issues. Second advantage is standard costing is standards that are viewed as reasonable by employees can promote economy and efficiency. They provide benchmarks that individuals can use to judge their own performance. Besides that, standard costs can greatly simplify bookkeeping. Instead of recording actual costs for each job, the standard costs for materials, labor, and overhead can be charged to jobs. Last but not least, standard costs fit naturally in an integrated system of responsibility accounting. The standards establish what costs should be, who should be responsible for them, and what actual costs are under control. However, the use of standard costs can present a number of potential problems or disadvantages. Most of these problems result from improper use of standard costs and the management by exception principle or from using standard costs in situations in which they are not appropriate. Standard cost variance reports are usually prepared on a monthly basis and often are released days or even weeks after the end of the month. As a consequence, the information in the reports may be so stale that it is almost useless. Timely, frequent reports that are approximately correct are better than infrequent reports that are very precise but out of date by the time they are released. Some companies are now reporting variances and other key operating data daily or even more frequently. Besides that, if managers are insensitive and use variance reports as a club, morale may suffer. Employees should receive positive reinforcement for work well done. Management by exception, by its nature , tends to focus on the negative. If variances are used as a club, subordinates may be tempted to cover up unfavorable variances or take actions that are not in the best interest of the company to make sure the variances are favorable. For example, workers may put on a crash effort to increase output at the end of the month to avoid an unfavorable labor efficiency variance. In the rush to produce output quality may suffer. In some cases, a favorable variance can be as bad as or worse than an unfavorable variance. For example, McDonalds has a standard for the amount of hamburger meat that should be in a Big Mac. A favorable variance would mean that less meat was used than standard specifies. The result is a substandard Big Mac and possibly an unsatisfied customer. Another problem of using standard costing, there may be a tendency with standard cost reporting systems to emphasize meeting the standards to the exclusion of other important objectives such as maintaining and improving qua lity, on-time delivery, and customer satisfaction. This tendency can be reduced by using supplemental performance measures that focus on these other objectives. Just meeting standards may not be sufficient; continual improvement may be necessary to survive in the current competitive environment. For this reason, some companies focus on the trends in the standard cost variances aiming for continual improvement rather than just meeting the standards. In other companies, engineered standards are being replaced either by a rolling average of actual costs, which is expected to decline, or by very challenging target costs. In sum, managers should exercise considerable care in their use of a standard cost system. It is particularly important that managers go out of their way to focus on the positive, rather than just on the negative, and to be aware of possible unintended consequences. Nevertheless standard costs are still found in the vast majority of manufacturing companies and in many service companies, although their use is changing. For evaluating performance, standard cost variances may be supplanted in the future by a particularly interesting development known as the balanced scorecard. How standard costs are sets? Standards should be set for the quantities and prices of materials, labour and services to be consumed in performing each operation associated with a product. Product standard costs are derived by listing and adding the standard costs of operations required to produce a particular product. Two approaches are used or setting standard costs. First, past historical records can be used to estimate labour and material usage. Secondly, standards can be set based on engineering studies. With engineering studies a detailed study of each operation is unedertaken under controlled conditions, based on high levels of efficiency, to ascertain the quantities of labour and materials required. Target prices are then applied based on efficient purchasing to ascertain the standard costs. How a standard costing system operates? Standard costing is most suited to an organization whose activities consist of a series of repetitive operations and the input required to produce each unit of output can be specified. A standard costing system involves the following: The standard costs for the actul output are recorded for each operation for each responsibilty centre. Actual costs for each operation are traced to each responsibility centre. The standard and actual costs are compared. Variances are investigated and corrective action is taken where appropriate Standards are monitored and adjusted to reflect changes in standard usage and/or prices. Variances What is the main purpose of variance analysis? There are very few plans that turn out exactly as planned. Even when the overall objectives of the plan are achieved, some, if not all components of the performance will have varied from the sub-plans or standards that make up the overall picture. For example, a football team may win an important game, as planned, but within the team performance there may be many aspects that the manager will analyse during and after the match so that performance can be improved for next time. As in business, good points need to be encouraged, less positive aspects need to be discussed and corrected. In a game of football, a side may have won a high number of corner kicks, but conceded too many free-kicks in defending. There is little to be gained for the next match if we do not think about the last performance in detail. Variance analysis provides a framework for business managers to breakdown the overall performance of an organisation, so that each individual element of the business can be isolated and analysed in turn. What are the causes of labour, material, overhead, and sales margin variances? Quantities cost variances arise because the actual quantity of resources consumed exceed actual usage or vice versa. Examples include excess usage of materials and labour arising from the usage of interior materials, careless handling of materials and failure to maintain machinery in proper condition. Price variances arise when the actual prices paid for resources exceed the standard prices or else. Examples include the failure of the purchasing function to seek the most efficient sources of supply or the use of a different grade of labour to that incorporation in the standard costs. How to calculate material, labour, variable overhead, fixed overhead, and sales variances.

Global Communication :: International Relations Global Essays Papers

Global Communication In chapter 14 on his book Global Communication in the twenty-first century, Stevenson focuses on the topic of persuasive communication. He presents a brief analysis of propaganda, or using his term, public diplomacy, making reference to the United States Information Agency (USIA). He also speaks about advertising highlighting that international advertising is increasing. Stevenson refers that the new global communications systems are efficient tools for governments and economics sectors to reach and influence public opinion, I suppose that it is understood that always communications systems have been efficient to influence people. It is much what scholars have writing about persuasive communication and it is much what we have read about this. Stevenson just presents a compact information with different examples which permit illustrated the topic. In the formation of stereotypes, influence in the self-identity and the role of the media in this process, an example comes to my mind. The refuse of the â€Å"stigma† of being Indians, commonly seen in many countries of Latin America. At this respect, Carrasco in a study about Indians migration in Ecuador points out that they â€Å"change their clothes in the bus terminal bathroom in Riobamba, in order to arrive in Guayaquil without seeming Indians.... They return talking like costeà ±os, and some refuse to speak Quechua even in the local community† (Carrasco, 105). Obviously, in this case, this comportment not only responds to an impact of the media over this people, in fact, many of them do not have a direct relation with media. Other factors like history, socio-economic relations, believes and culture are probably much more important than the portrayal of the Indians in the media, nonetheless, it is important to mention how media contribute. We could allege Mexican good selling TV novelas or soap operas, with large acceptancing among audience in Ecuador and other Latin American countries, Indians roles here are poor and with a lack of values. Probably a better example is a disgusting but popular series called â€Å"La India Maria†, where the protagonist is a dumb, dirty and poor Indian woman. The latter produced by â€Å"Televisa† in Mexico. In relation with this program and attending critics from some sectors of the audience, Televisa president, Emilio Azcarraga, said â€Å"to educate is a task of the government and not of Televisa†. Personally I think that for good or bad, nobody has influenced the formation (or disformation) of today Mexican minds as Televisa and Azcarraga family.

Family and Marriage in Shakespeares Comedy of Errors :: Shakespeare Comedy of Errors Essays

Comedy of Errors - Family and Marriage Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is a madcap romp of mistakes and misadventures, wrapping together two Plautine comedies sauced with Scripture and Renaissance poetry. Yet the tangled web of estranged family that Shakespeare weaves holds significant differences from any of his originals, pointing to ideas about family and marriage that Shakespeare no doubt held, and was to develop further in later works. Plautus' Menaechmi yields a basic framework for Shakespeare's plot: two long-separated brothers mistaken for one another. Yet Plautus' two brothers differ markedly in attitude: one is "gay, generous, and fun-loving," the other "shrewd, calculating, and cynical" (Kinko, p. 10). Shakespeare's Antipholi seem as confused as their Menaechmi relations, but more interchangeable in general temperament. Plautus' Amphitryon provides the idea of doubling servants as well as masters, but these are duplicates by divine action: one set are disguised gods fully aware of the situation, the other confused mortals. So why the device of like-behaving mortal twins? Perhaps it is in the family members Shakespeare adds -- Egeon, Aemilia, Luciana -- that we discover the motives for his adaptations. One of the main themes of Shakespearean comedy is that of the new community: thus the stereotypical round of marriages that is a given for almost any comic Act V. Here we have only one new marriage, between (Syracusan) Antipholus Erotes and Luciana, the restoration of happiness to (Ephesian) Antipholus Sereptus and formerly shrewish Adriana, and the renewal of Egeon and Aemilia's long-sundered wedding bonds (taken and developed from Gower's Confessio Amantis). But the characters begin the play almost wholly sundered from community: Egeon has long lost both wife and half his progeny, and abandoned his known son for a seven years' search; Antipholus Erotes seems blithely unaware of his father's presence in town, so complete is their separation; even Antipholus Sereptus is estranged from his wife Adriana, not enjoying the fruitful state of marriage that must be the lot of comic characters. They are all awash in a capitalist society of business and bonds, with little room for generosity but much for the Officer, debtors' prison, and harsh laws against Syracusan foreigners that even the Duke cannot overturn. Here St. Paul enters the fray, with the prescriptions of his Epistle to the Ephesians (!): "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

Community Based Rehabilitation

A Documentation of such a comprehensive finish cannot be completed without the help of numerous sources and people throughout the long rugged path of success. I too realized this fact and so, I take this opportunity to thank them all. Personally this documentation has helped me to gain knowledge and skills to understand people with disabilities and their struggle for survival.Therefore it indeed gave me a great opportunity to study the Community Based Rehabilitation programme (CBR) of Women's Develop Centre (WDC) understand the services they provide to the people with disabilities. This documentation would not have been possible if not for the generosity of number of person who spent their time with me. In particular, I wish to acknowledge Ms. Pearl Stephen, Founder Director, Women's Development Centre (WDC) who prompted me to undertake this study and for giving me the guidance and support. I also wish to acknowledge the support and informative guidance of Ms.Dammika Podiemanike, Coo rdinator, WDC CBR programme. I extend my thank you to all the staffs of CBR programme for helping me throughout this study by providing and facilitating to obtain necessary information Finally, I must mention here that all those who supported me in helping me to document have done so with an expectation of a successful documentation. Such an expectation has been my source of inspiration and encouragement. I express my sincere thanks to all of them albeit that I may not be able to present their names.Having completed the documentation, it is my hope that it will serve as a source of information for those who are interested on the subject of community based rehabilitation especially who are interested on research on such a subject, for donors to get an understanding as to how their resources are serving the humanity and most of all as a reflective material for WDC management and staff for appreciating their own work as well as for further enhancement of their programme. It is my wish that this documentation will bring more light to further enhance safeguarding the rights of the disabled persons.Ranjan S. K. Nellimale Documenter August 2007 CONTENTS 01. INTRODUCTION01 02. BACKGROUND DETAILS01 †¢ The aim of WDC is to †¢ WDC Vision †¢ Mission †¢ WDC Target Group †¢ Major areas of work †¢ District Level Women’s Fora attached to WDC Women’s Network 03. OBJECTIVES OF THE DOCUMENTATION11 04. METHODOLOGY OF DOCUMENTATION11 05. THE METHODOLOGY USED FOR DOCUMENTATING11 06. COMMUNITY BASED REHABILITATION11 †¢ What is CBR? 07. WOMENS DEVELOPMENT CENTER AND COMMUNITY BASED REHABILITATION13 †¢ Vision of CBR Unit of WDC †¢ Objectives †¢ Activities A. Kandy Community Based Rehabilitation Centre15 Day care centre †¢ Counselling †¢ Speech and Language Therapy a. Speech class b. Speech Therapy c. Language Therapy †¢ Physiotherapy unit †¢ Special Education class †¢ Behaviour Modification B. Voc ational Training Centre (VTC) Ampitiya23 C. Manikhinna Community Based Rehabilitation centre26 D. Matale Community Based Rehabilitation Centre28 E. Teldeniya Community Based Rehabilitation Centre29 F. Haragama Community Based Rehabilitation Centre31 G. Madolkale Community Based Rehabilitation Centre33 H. Ulapane Community Based Rehabilitation Centre34 I.Pothgoda Community Based Rehabilitation Centre36 J. Galpihilla Community Based Rehabilitation Centre38 K. Community Blind Rehabilitation program39 08. REMARKS 42 †¢ Intervention †¢ Rehabilitation †¢ Prevention 09. CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT44 10. KEY LEARNING FROM THE DOCUMENTATION PROCESS 45 1. Impact on the disabled persons 2. Impact on Family living 3. Access to services and facilities 4. Impact on social relations 5. Capacity Building of Vocational Training 6. Access to loans for those with vocational Training 7. Community Awareness 8. Self Help Group formation 9.Parental Capacity Building 10. Advocacy 11. RE COMMENDATIONS49 12. ANNEXURES54 COMMUNITY BASED REHABILITATION PROGRAMME OF WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT CENTRE 01. INTRODUCTION The concept of Community Based Rehabilitation programme is that disabled people should have the right to a good life and fulfil their needs. The help they need should be available to them at a low cost. It should offer to them and their family a way that suits their usual way of living, whether in a village, a town or a city. They should have education like everybody else and there should not be any disparity.They should be able to take up the normal activities like jobs and earning their own living without discrimination and exploitation. They should be able to take full part in all the activities of their village, or town or city or within their families. The idea of CBR is that, even if people learn very slowly, or have problems seeing or hearing or, find it hard to move about, they should still be respected as being men and women, girls and boys. Nobody should look down on them, nor be treated any less than a normal person just because they have a disability. 2. BACKGROUND Women's Development Centre (WDC) is an organization established in 1987 and registered as an NGO in 1989. The aim of WDC is to: Help Women enhance their participation in Socio-Economic life and help them take up leadership roles in various capacities. WDC Vision: To create a society where women and children are actively involved, having equal opportunity to, access to, and control over resources and working in the area of advocacy and policy to their own betterment and of their families.Mission: Facilitate and create an environment to strengthen the position of women and children in society by addressing women’s and children’s issues and community awareness, thereby reducing victimization improving opportunities for engaging in income generation activities and awareness to improve their lives with increased knowledge and through group support and ac tivities. WDC Target Group: WDC’s work involves women from disadvantaged communities but also expands to include youth and children from all ethnic and religious groups’ predominantly in rural areas.Major areas of work: †¢ Crisis Intervention †¢ Community based Rehabilitation †¢ Network with seven district fora and other organizations with similar aim and objectives. †¢ Community development (health, community organizing, community awareness and working with schools) †¢ Pre-schools and day care centres †¢ Resource centre †¢ Legal aid/counselling programme †¢ Disaster intervention District Level Women’s Fora attached to WDC Women’s Network 03. OBJECTIVES OF THE DOCUMENTATION To explain the concept of the Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) program as implemented by WDC. †¢ How far has the CBR program brought positive impact to communities where it is implemented. †¢ To identify where changes are required f or a more effective CBR programme. 04. METHODOLOGY OF DOCUMENTATION The Community Based Rehabilitation program (CBR) has been documented by using Descriptive method. The documenter used mostly interviews and observations to gather information. 05. THE METHODOLOGY USED FOR DOCUMENTING The initial discussion with Mrs.Pearl Stephen as the author and initiator of the program as well as other key individuals helped in developing the interviews and observation guide. The information gathered were summarized and analyzed to provide major leanings and conclusions. 06. COMMUNITY BASED REHABILITATION Community Based Rehabilitation approach is said to be suitable for developing countries with limited resources to provide wider coverage of services. The importance of CBR approach is the transfer of minimum rehabilitation skills and responsibility to minimally trained family members and other volunteers in the community.The last decade saw the growth of community based rehabilitation in many dev eloping countries, along with changes and adjustments in the concepts and practices related to this field especially in countries like Sri Lanka. What is CBR? Mrs. Pearl Stephen, Founder Director of WDC who initiated CBR, perceives that any intervention to disabled people is liberation for those who are the care takers of the most marginalised persons. In fact, it is the rationale for a women’s organisation such as WDC to be involved in the issues of the disabled.According to her, it is a programme that safeguard the rights of the disabled persons changing their surroundings, including enabling the family and the community in this task. It is a sustainable process that utilises as much local resources and techniques as possible to intervene, rehabilitate and minimise occurrence of disabilities. â€Å"A strategy within community development for the rehabilitation, equalization of opportunities and social integration of all people with disabilities† (UN definition) †Å"CBR is a strategy for enhancing the quality of life of disabled people by improving service delivery, by providing more equitable pportunities and by promoting and protecting their human rights† (E. Helander ). 07. WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT CENTER AND COMMUNITY BASED REHABILITATION The Women’s Development Centre (WDC) is a local Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) based in Kandy. The aim of the organization is to promote women’s status in society by building capacity, developing partnerships and supporting awareness on health, legal rights, gender leadership development crisis intervention and skills training, networking and action- research on women’s issues.The WDC began by running a community health training program in collaboration with local medical officers of health. As the health volunteers gained the trust of many families and communities in which they were working, they learned of many disabled children who had received little, if, any, help. Many were hidden away in shame and fear, some even physically imprisoned in there homes. The parents were in desperate need of help and support in coping with the stresses and difficulties of caring for these children.Following requests from the parents, it was agreed that a rehabilitation programme be started in November 1990, with the children already attending the WDC centre in Kandy on two mornings in a week. Some of original health volunteers become the ‘rehabilitation workers’ and their training was extended by attendance at paediatric, psychiatric and ENT clinics as well as short courses at a special school for hearing – impaired children. The programme was well attended and rapidly developed, with new centres opening in local villages in response to community requests.There are 10 community based rehabilitation (CBR) centres run by WDC in number of places such as, Ulapane, Manikhinna, Pothgoda, Madolkalele, theldeniya, Galphila, Matale, Ampitiya, Haragama and in Kandy. The village centres are in temples halls and other community premises. They function with the co-operation / support of the local community. These different centres work with hospitals, schools, department of education, the divisional secretariats and the various service departments within these secretariats. The programme taps a lot of local resources from parents, divisional secretariats, department of social services etc.Most of these departments have a lot of respect for the quality of service rendered by WDC unit and the rapport they are able to develop with the departments and the clients alike. Vision of CBR Unit of WDC: Create an environment where the person with special needs while enjoy equal rights and maximum benefits within the family and society. Objective: †¢ Minimize conditions that lead to disabilities †¢ Rehabilitate persons with disabilities while being in community †¢ Advocate on issues related to disabilities of persons Activities: †¢ Maintain community based rehabilitation centres Maintain special education units †¢ Maintain vocational training centres for person with special needs †¢ Implement community education programs †¢ Develop and support networks with and for people with disabilities †¢ Mainstream of work and issues of person with disabilities A. Kandy Community Based Rehabilitation Centre The Kandy CBR group currently functions as a separate unit close to the WDC main office. A total of 48 staff are spread over ten CBR centres. There are 10 Staff members rendering their support to the Kandy centre.In general, all of the centres whether in the urban areas like Kandy or other centres in rural areas, there are a basic set of services and activities rendered. Therefore, this document would not try to elaborate all these activities in all the centres but try to indicate some of the unique features of the different programmes. The centre in Kandy, in the sense, can be seen as the h ub and coordinating place. It is the training and orientation centre as well as assessment centre of many disabilities where a large number of clients from different parts of the island access their initials services and referrals.The babies and children attending the CBR programmes have wide range of disabilities like hearing and visual impaired, language disorders, learning difficulties, and behaviour problems, physical and mental disorders. There is lack of space for special education schools and units so the children will move from the centres to get special education. However, some of the children are having multiple difficulties which make such placement more difficult. There is a system to assist the very young and other children with difficulties.Those who come to seek the services of the WDC Kandy centre come from various parts of the island through different sources, such as through referrals from hospitals, doctors, hospital clinics, special education department, organiza tions and some times any one who has heard of this CBR program from a friend or relatives also bring their children or direct. Some of the services rendered by CBR Kandy centre is counselling, speech and language therapy, day care centre, visual program, physio-therapy and special education class. Day Care Centre: The Day Care Centre of the WDC CBR unit entertains children requiring Day care facilities for both WDC staff and others. The uniqueness of this centre is the ability to integrate both normal and children with special needs. Presently there are 18 children (both girls and boys) in the pre school age in this day care centre. Two of the children are from crisis intervention centre of WDC at Haragama which serves women and young girls who have faced violence. Shabana is a 6 years old child having a physical disability in her hand, arly she got physiotherapy treatment from the centre and now she receives normal pre school education. †¢ Counselling: Counselling is an a inte ractive process conjoining the counselee who need assistance and the counsellor who is trained and educated to give this assistance, the counsellor can initiate and maintain the interactive process if he/she communicates feelings of spontaneity and warmth tolerance, respect and sincerity. One of the main work done by CBR Kandy unit is providing counselling to the parents and the children with disabilities.When the parents approach the organization for help, the first thing that the CBR counsellors do is a detailed assessment regarding the problems of child and the related causes by using formats developed by them. In this process the CBR counsellors try to help the parents to clarify the problem and the way how to build the helping process. In the end of this process the counsellors will direct the parents towards next step and to the type of service required. †¢ Speech and Language Therapy: The main objective of this unit is to help children in improving Speech and Language sk ills. a.Speech class: Speech class are conducted for children who are having speech difficulties such as stammering, autistic, Down syndrome etc. it is an individual effort with each child. These children are referred by schools and hospitals. The children go through initial assessment while being in the speech class. Those who require intense rehabilitation are identified and provided with further intervention. After the initial assessments and corrective measurers, these children are referred to special education units and followed up on a monthly assessment basis. Some children are also followed up at homes during home visits . Speech Therapy: Those who are supported through speech therapy are those with more intense speaking disabilities such as those who have difficulties with voice and exeursing the tongue. Sometimes such intervention require around one year of treatment process. c. Language Therapy: Language therapy is often for the children who have extreme difficulties in s peaking such as deaf children. Such children are assessed and intervened to improve sounds, sign language etc. The deaf children in particular are referred to the deaf school in Dodanwala to enable them to continue their school career.Even while the children enter the deaf school, they are still followed up until they reach a level of improvement. †¢ Physiotherapy unit: The Physiotherapy unit plays a vital role to improve the functional ability of children with physical disabilities. This unit performs a number of important services such as assessment of the level of functional ability of the children, perform rehabilitative exercise on children, education and trains parents on exercises, nutritional and health requirements of children to improve these condition.The other function of the unit is also to improve appropriate and affordable rehabilitative devices that could also be turned out in the rural homes. †¢ Special Education class: The children who come to the special education unit are referred by schools or these who are on the verge of dropping out of schools due to learning difficulties. These are children who require special attention or not able to cope in class room situations. Special education class provide the children with learning difficulties to over come their problem and to develop the knowledge.It provides the children to understand the weakness they have and to get the help of the staff of the centre. The staff have developed a good relationship with the children and it helps most students to improve. †¢ Behaviour Modification: This unit is one place where children who have extreme behaviour difficulties such as those who are hyperactive or are not able to concentrate. They are received to a special unit where they are provided with guidance and unique activities to help them sit in a place, improve concentration, improve working together, learn patience, etc.After these, children learn to control themselves, they are moved to other section for rehabilitative exercises. B. Vocational Training Centre (VTC) Ampitiya The aim of the vocational centre of CBR is to assist children with special abilities to develop their skills to enhance their dignity by helping them to explore and learn about their inherent skills and develop them further to enable productive and more independent living. The children have special talents. After their education, if they are not supported to enhance, they may be lost while they enter the lager society.This is especially true for the children with mental and physical disability. They normally do not get sufficient assistance from government. To cope up with this situation and to reduce the problems they face, in 1999 WDC started the Vocational Training Centre (VTC) within the CBR. In the beginning VTC started with 24 students and given them training in carpet making, envelopes, paper bags and in carpentry. The Ampitiya centre belongs to the (government) department of social s erves and WDC was requested to run this centre.As WDC maintain very good rapport with government departments but lacks required resources, this request was considered timely and opportune. This centre has three units for residential care, vocational training and school for special education. Mostly, the vocational trainings are for those children who pass out from various rehabilitation centres and have no other future prospects. At present, there are around 20 children both females and male children learning various skills, not only at the Ampitiya centre but also in other community level rehabilitation centres.The type of vocational training are Carpentry, Eakle broom production, Candle production, Cement flower pots making, Handloom, Sewing/rug – making, Fabric/Pottery paint, Envelop making, Paper bag making, Home gardening, Greeting cards, Stocki-net flower making and Patch work. It must be mentioned that it is not easy to train children with disabilities with certain phy sical mental disabilities. The teachers require patience and concentration all the time especially when they are training to use various tools. While some products can be promoted to competitive markets, this is not always possible.Some children take a very long time to learn the skills but some perhaps cannot go beyond making rugs. Some of the trainees who train the children themselves have been trained by the VTC As part of network building the teachers of VTC also visit Digana rehabilitation hospital for spinal injuries to give vocational training for patients. This training while it goes as part of rehabilitative exercises, also provides a good training to start own employment in their houses. Further staff of Digana hospital says that those training also have tremendous psychosocial impact on the patients.There are many programmes conducted in collaboration with the government organizations and most of the time the VTC receive invitations /requests to participate in their progr ammes. Specially sports events and other competitions. It really help student to appreciate their own capacities. In the year of 2007, 3 students were selected from Amptiya VTC to represent Sri Lanka for Para Olympics in china. C. Manikhinna Community Based Rehabilitation Centre Manikhinna centre was started in the year of 1992. During the 14 year period, it has provided a variety of services to the community.Currently the centre is located at the Ganadevi kovila, old temple and provides the services to the children with disability as well as to the community. The main aim of the centre is to use the available resource in the community and use them for the development of socially handicapped people. Mainly this centre carries out the process to rehabilitate mentally and physically challenged children. Counselling, speech therapy, mentally retarded (MR) class, vocational training and Physiotherapy are the major activities carried out in this centreThe centre maintains good relationsh ip with the temple and the local politicians and the benefit of good rapport improves their service to the community. Manikhinna Community Based Rehabilitation centre has provided many services to the community. The program has enabled the community to build some houses and toilets among the needy families. Parents too get self employment training in order to make the family financially stable. The centre strongly believe to make a better environment for the child. Making the family self employed help the child considerably in the rehabilitation process.The training to parents on self employment further helps to integrate the children with disabilities within family and community. So many changes have also occurred in the community sine the CBR program began in this community. Among them is the awareness of disabilities that has taken place among the community and community under stand this kind of children require special attention and care. When the Manikhinna centre initially sta rted, the staff visited many communities. In the process they also identified villages classed as ‘Low caste’, and those ‘working with devils’. hese village were normally neglected by other villages, and government officers never visited them nor did the temple accept their alms. However, when the CBR staff started to visit them, inviting the priests and government officers to the CBR centre, the situation started gradually changing. Sudeep is a 16 year old boy having learning difficulties. According to the doctors he is a mentally retarded child. He come from a poor family and his father left him and the family. CBR helped his mother to build a house because they do not have proper shelter. Currently this child is attending Speech and Language Therapy classes in the CBR centre.It is interesting to note that this child manages to read and write to some extent. When the documenter asked Sudeep whether he could visit his newly built house he was overjoyed. Wi th outmost interest Sudeep help the documenter to visit his house and get information about his village. The development that has taken place in this child is important to the society as well as for the child’s own future. D. Matale Community Based Rehabilitation Centre Matale Community Based Rehabilitation Centre was started in the year 2000 and currently it is situated at Hunukate Alokaramya Temple.The service rendered by the staff of this centre are recognized by the people and they give their fullest support to the CBR program. There are 75 children currently getting the services from this centre. It carries out the rehabilitation activities for mentally and physically challenged children. It provides Counselling, speech therapy, MR class, self employment training and Physiotherapy. Due to ignorance and lack of awareness most of the community people face many problem. The CBR centre has taken steps to conduct awareness programs to the community, such as the orthopaedic ca mp conducted by the ‘Centre for Handicap’ organization.It is a good example of how the CBR unite coordinate with other organizations to improve the services for the people. Anther awareness program is on nutrition. It is an important program for the community as most of the parents and children do not have proper nutrition. Good nutrition has been identified as one of the most important aspects to minimize disability. Documenter got the opportunity to speak with the midwife of the community and learned how the CBR program benefited the lives of people. According to her earlier there was no awareness among the people about the disabilities and they totally neglected those people with disabilities.But when the CBR staff started to work with the people they became aware about the problem and sought the help of the CBR centre. She also mentioned that the staff are able to build a good rapport with people and provide a lot of support to those who approach them. Amila Kumara is a student doing his advance level (A/L) this year. His mother is working abroad and his father is dead. At the time he approached the CBR program, he was totally neglected by his family members due to his physical disability. He has difficulty to walk.Due to this difficulty he did not attend the A/L classes. But with the support of the CBR centre he has improved a lot and now he can walk by himself. He got so much of motivation from the CBR staff and support that encouraged him to do his A/L. He will sit for the examination this year. He is so happy about the CBR program and he says that because of this program his life has changed. E. Teldeniya Community Based Rehabilitation centre Teldeniya centre was started in the year of 2004. Currently the centre is lacated in the Teldeniya primary school.With the limited space this centre is functioning well and provids much services to the community. In this centre Counselling, speech therapy, MR class, self employment training and Physio therapy programs are available for the community. As the centre is located within the school premises, it has developed a strong relationship with the school programs and work closely with the school to provide better services. This centre also conducts awareness programmes and organized women's groups. This centre too provides training on self employment. Tailoring class seem popular.There is a teacher employed by Government handling this class for the parents of these children. In this centre staff have been able to create a good environment with government officials as well as other top level officials in order to provide better service to the community. Documenter got an opportunity to speak with the school principal and learn how the CBR program fulfils the needs of the community. According to him, prior to the program there were no support to the children with mental and physical disabilities, they where totally neglected within the schools as well as in the community.The CBR programme provided these children with disabilities an opportunity to come out of their difficult situation. According to the principal earlier there was no one to help the children with leaning and behavioural difficulties in their education in the school. Teachers were disinterested in such children as they where more interested to help the able children. After the rehabilitation programme was started, we are now able to send these children to this centre and now I am happy to see the improvement of these children due to the help they got form this program. Some of the children we sent to this centre have come back and are now studying with normal children, It is a joy nice to see how they have change†. Deshika Kolabaga is a 6 year old child having much difficulty in her behaviour pattern. Since 3 years she is attending the CBR centre and gets speech therapy and special education support. According to her mother Deshika underwent so much of difficulty with in the family due to her ways of behaviour. All her family members neglected and reject her. But since she started to attend the CBR program she has remarkably improved.She has been able to get over most of her behaviour problems, she is now able to do her work normally and manage to win every one hearts in the family. The family members now understand that she has to get special care and attention from the family. Desheka’s mother is so happy about the staff of the organization and says that it is due to their care and support that her child has improved and she is thankful for them. F. Haragama Community Based Rehabilitation centre Haragama centre was started in the year of 2004, since then there have been so much of changes in the community because of the CBR program.It has given lot of services to the community for the upliftment of children with disabilities. Currently the centre is located close to the WDC Crisis centre. Like other CBR centres this centre too caries out the duties of reh abilitating mentally and physically challenged children. It provides Counselling, speech therapy, MR classes, self employment training and Physiotherapy. Most of the parents of children who come to the centre said that prior to bringing their children to the centre, they faced many difficulties due to lack of awareness on how to handle the children.But with the CBR programme, life has become much easier. It has also facilitated looking at the problems as a community. The parents of these children are very poor and therefore the CBR programme also help the mothers through skills training on basket making etc. It is expected that after this training the mothers will engage themselves in self employment. The documenter had the opportunity to speak with a group of basket-making women in the centre, they were so happy and willingly came forward to explain how and what kind of service they get from WDC as an organization.The mothers explained that prior to coming to the CBR program, they faced much hardships and their children experienced many difficulties in learning, behavioural problems, etc due to the disabilities. However the mothers are very happy about the improvement that they see in their children. They also feel relieved due to this improvement. The mothers also appreciate the training they received to work with their children to participate in the rehabilitation process of their children. G. Madolkale Community Based Rehabilitation centre This centre was started in the year 2000.The program in particular supports the disabled children in the plantation sector. Currently the centre is located close to Paramsehwara Tamil College Madolkale, and looks after around 24children. Because this centre is located in close proximity to plantation sector, most of the children come from families working in plantation sector. Serving the plantation itself is a unique experience for the WDC/CBR unit, as there are very few programs implemented to serve the estate sector. Compared to all other projects of WDC/CBR unit, the parents of most children have a very low level of literacy.In general, though it is a community living close to each other, it is not a close community that supports one another. Since both parents go to work, the children with disabilities and practically the mothers who are burdened with many functions face a lot of difficulties. Initially the staff also found it difficult to located children. It was also difficult to make parents understand why it is important to pay special attention to children with disabilities. Gradually the programme has taken root in the community. The parents, teachers and children are now able to understand its importance.Because the school community and children appreciate the program, the organization enjoys good reputation. There are 24 children who attend speech class, speech therapy, MR class, and self employment training. Other than this, 2 families receive the help of WDC. One parent was helped to cement the floor of their house while another received tea plants to initiate an income generation activity. As the staff identified the problems of low nutrition being low, they also conducted training and education session on nutritionThe documenter had the opportunity to speak with some of children who were engaged in sewing handkerchiefs. These were children with learning difficulties as well as physical disabilities. According to them they are happy now because they get the opportunity to learn some useful things for their future and these children really feel more secure due to the CBR program. There are other skills training activities such as bag making, making envelopes and candles, etc. H. Ulapane Community Based Rehabilitation centre Ulapane centre was started in 1995.During the 17 year period it has given many services to the community to help through many development activities. Currently the centre is located in at the Ulapane Maha Vidyalaya and providing the services to the children through the special education unit. In my view, compared to other centres, Ulapane is a difficult terrain to work due to hilly slopes. The area that the staff are required to cover is wide. Children are brought to this centre from very faraway places. The staff also require to travel far to make home visits.There are also many physically disabled children that the parents are unable to bring to the centre on a routine basis. Therefore, the staff are required to make much effort to visit all of them despite transportation difficulties in the area. Also the resources are very limited Like other centres it mainly carries out the process of rehabilitation of mentally and physically challenge children. It gives Counselling, speech therapy, MR class, vocational training and Physiotherapy. This centre has built a good reputation among the government officers and the social welfare organizations. According to the school Principal, the CBR program has created so much of awar eness about disabilities in the community that it has become easy to identify disabilities among the children. Initially people did not have an understanding what this center was doing for children with disabilities but, with time, they have gained understanding and started to help the school in ways they could. He said â€Å"It is a privilege, as a Principal, for me to take part in this program†. Listening to the Principal it was clear to me that he is satisfied with the CBR program and appreciates the work they are doing.The change in awareness and the quality of life of children are remarkable. The staff of the Ulapane unit also indicated that apart from the services they render to the children, the mothers of the children also have become members of a women's forum. Through this forum, the mothers get training and support to develop income-generation towards economic empowerment. Ashma is a girl having learning difficulties. She has been dropped out from two schools and n ever given enough support and guidance for her education. She has been totally neglected from the school and it created some confusion and difficulties for her.When her father started to take her in to the CBR program she started showing improvement in her education and her father is vary happy about her development. According to her father she is getting proper care and support for her education due to which she is motivated and shows interest in studies. The Father said now he could understand why she was not able to study well in the schools, that it was due to the lack of capabilities of the schools teachers to understand slow learning. When such children started attending school and fall into the wrong and incapable hands of teachers, the school careers of children are ruined.Such children then become isolated and ashamed. They are branded as those who cannot study, rather than saying that they were in the hands of incapable teachers. From the above case-study, it is clear that the kind of service provided to the community become more important and indeed it create lot of awareness about disabilities and what kind of services are available for them. I. Pothgoda Community Based Rehabilitation Centre This centre is located at Pothgoda Rajasinha Vidyalaya as a special unit. This unit started to work in the community since 2002.The importance of this unit is mainly to concentrate to bring behavioural changes and help slow learning children to get proper support through education. The special emphasis of this unite is to provide special education to the children who are having learning difficulties due to M/R. It should be noted that not only children with MR face difficulties of being misunderstood, the parents too face difficulties and are saddened by the fact that they are not able to understand their children. The parents of these children are engaged in cultivation as their main occupation and most of the parents are poorly literate.This has an impact on the development of the children. Children with disabilities normally get isolated from the families and get neglected. They may not receive proper care and support. Therefore, the services of the CBR unit become important to develop the sensitivity of the family towards children with disabilities, so that proper attention could be paid to children. From the perspective of the children, when children are not understood and proper attention paid by the school, most children end up as drop outs from schools. Therefore, such units are playing an important role to lift the education level of children.They are able to make improvements and get back to the normal education after they gain improvement. The staff also shared that in families where there are children with disabilities, the families also have many conflicts that make the life of children extremely difficult. The staff understanding this situation, also provides counselling. According to the principal, this unit has had major i mpact on the community and to lift the standard of education of the children with disabilities. Recently, the unit also conducted an awareness program to the school teachers on depression. Another awareness programme for the community was on nutrition.Such programmes have provided many benefits for the children and their families. He noted with satisfaction that some children have been able to get back their normal class after improvement. J. Galpihilla Community Based Rehabilitation centre Galpihilla Centre has been started 1998 and currently located at the Galpihilla primary school. The function of this unit is to provide special education to the children who have been identified to have learning disabilities. Most of the children in the unit have multiple difficulties and shown improvement with CBR intervention. The children who come to this centre come from the nearby community.As has been explained, in relation to other centres, it needs to be reiterated the hapless situation o f the children with disabilities where there is no understanding how to handle and care for such children. According to the principal most families in the community are poor and this poverty situation directly affects children with disabilities. With the intervention of the CBR on the lives of children to develop their level of independence, it has helped to free the time of the parents which adds to their awareness and their co-operation in this regard. Rumasha Abeyanaike was born in 1990 with physical disabilities.Her father is a labourer. His earnings are not enough to meet the needs of family. In 1992 she came to the special unit for treatment. Because of her physical disabilities she was not able to move freely. With the help and support of the centre she gained control over her limbs and posture. With the exercises, by the CBR staff and at home by her parents, within about 4 years she was able to sit. When she was able to control her limbs, she was trained to use thread frames to develop skills. She excelled in both education and in making lace work. Over the years she also learned to work with out help.All these achievements have made her family very happy. K. Community visual Rehabilitation program Community visual Rehabilitation program is one among the important activities carried out under CBR program. It mainly concentrates on the blind or the people who have difficulties in their vision. Currently this program functions as a separate unit under CBR program. This program was introduced in 2001. Because of a good network system that WDC has developed they received an invitation from an organization based in the south of Sri Lanka to send three volunteers for a training program on blindness.After this training program was over, the 3 volunteers trained other staff in the WDC. A study that was subsequently conducted around Kandy, identified 128 persons with vision difficulties. Identification of such a large number of persons from all ages with vision difficulties is an eye opener to the divisional secretariat as the general perception was that blindness is not a problem in Kandy. The aim of this program is to deviate from a purely clinical model of intervention.Therefore, the intervention contains a package of service of screening, awareness on prevention of blindness or to make those with vision difficulties independent and productive; counselling to those affected and their family members; reducing poverty through involvement in income generation activities etc. While all 128 persons were referred for medical support, initially the programme identified 4 people for holistic care intervention. The expansion of the programme firstly concentrated in the Gangawata Korale divisional secretariat for 23 persons and later to Pathahewaheta and then to Harispathuwa divisions.In 2004, the number of clients in this programme increased to 43 persons. The clients feel that since they participate in the rehabilitation programme, they receiv ed more respect from the family members, earn as well as, save money, and it has contributed to improve the quality of their lives As part of the programme, the blind people underwent special training and counselling programme like how to do their day-to-day activities; how to use the white cane; and the ways of earn a living. Because of this program, some are engaged in small seale trade such as selling cloths, tea, etc, while some make paper bags, lamp wicks, joss sticks, etc.Kusumawati is a middle-aged lady with vision problem. When the Community visual Rehabilitation program reached her, she was living with her sister and was dependent on her. Once she got sufficiently rehabilitated, she started working in a near by joss sticks factory. However she did not receive sufficient salary. The CBR staff helped her to manufacture joss sticks in her house. She was able to earn and save money from her business, and build her own house and started to live on her own. Now she cooks her own meals and does her day to day activities by herself. From the financial ssistance she gets from the government and with the income generated from her small business, she is able to live happily. Above case study a good example of how a Community Blind Rehabilitation program could help the lives of needy people. There are many social welfare organizations in and round Kandy district but the only organization giving support to blind people to improve mobility and to start self employment is Women's Development Centre (WDC). Joss Sticks making Goat rearing 08. REMARKS There is sufficient evidence that the CBR programme makes a big difference in the lives of the children with disabilities and their families.Most of the children in the CBR program come from the poorer sector which itself is a big a hindrance for development, as children tend to lack the basic needs that are vitally important. The programme has proven its viability to improve the quality of life. †¢ Intervention: It is evident from many responses, that the CBR staff are experienced and skilled than most others like teachers to make good assessments of client to identify the condition of the children with disabilities. , whether they come from schools or community. They are able to be holistic in their assessments.They are also better able to build good rapport and win confidence of the children, their families and others such as school teachers, principals etc. Their level of professionalism and also the way they receive other support in the assessment enables them to develop more effective rehabilitation plan that is holistic. †¢ Rehabilitation: Rehabilitation is the most important process in CBR programme. It creates opportunity for the children with difficulties to receive right intervention and rehabilitation to overcome their problems with the help of the staff in the CBR program.There is a wide range of difficulties which are visible, with children like the physical disability, learn ing difficulties, behaviour problems, blind, profound deafness, hydrocephalous, down syndrome, multiple disabilities, speech problem, autistic and mental retardation. In the CBR programme they carry out activities to help the children to over come their problems and through this process they are rehabilitated. The activities such as Counselling, speech therapy, MR class, vocational training, special education class, awareness programs and Physiotherapy.It is remarkable to see how the staffs of the CBR program work closely with the children as well as with the parents to fulfil the task to improve the status of children and create an environment for the personal development and make rehabilitation process efficient. What is also interesting is that of available facility for those who get sufficiently rehabilitated, to follow vocational training to make their future independent and skilled, with life-long impact. The vocational training helps them to be employed or to start their own business with the support of their family members. Prevention: although it not possible to totally eradicate people becoming disabled, the CBR program carries out a number of programs to minimize people becoming disabled. While some of them are to raise awareness among the communities such as on intake of proper nutrition, discouraging marriages among blood relations, other are to eradicate poverty, poverty being the root cause for many evils including disablement. Further, the programme also helps marginalized community to learn various services such as health, come to receive rubella or other referrals or even making education more easily available to marginalized. 9. CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT The CBR approach is a holistic process spanning from individual development, continuing through to community. The process can be summarized in the following manner emanating fram the individual ` Speaking about a person with disabilities, he/she is a person with many problems/ difficu lties from within and outside. So the CBR process renders services to solve the disabilities within and this makes the rehabilitation process more effective. When the mind of the person becomes stable and strong, it leads to the improvement of the body conditions.It then leads to develop the spirituality of a person. It is clear when a person develops ones spirituality it leads to the development of his/her social status. All these processes together with other support, then leads to economic improvement. When the rehabilitation of a person is achieved, the process does not end there. It then leads to have positive impact on the community. Rehabilitation process should develop like a scale and it will be a continuous process. 10. KEY LEARNING FROM THE DOCUMENTATION PROCESSAs a documenter, in this section, I wish to present my overall impressions regarding the CBR programme. In overall performance, there are many positive outcome and impacts as a result of the CBR programme. 1. Impac t on the disabled persons: There is an observable change in the quality of life of the children and adults with disabilities as they get enrolled with the programme. They improve in mobility, coordinating limbs, enable continuation of education, improve in communication etc. ost of all, it enhances their dignity transforming them from a dependent, helpless person to an a independent person with abilities. Therefore, the process promotes individuals to become more independent and productive. Engagement on vocational training is a good example of improvement towards economic independence. For creating this impact, the skills of the staff, their commitment, rehabilitation techniques and in particular the social counselling process, have found to be important. 2. Impact on Family living: Within the family, the disabled persons have gained more recognition and acceptance.There is also marked improvement in the sensitivity of family members towards them and therefore, the disabled persons have been able to get appropriate support from the family members. Instead of the dependant persons that were there before, with CBR intervention, the disabled persons are able to contribute to the house-hold chores or in some instances, contribute economically. By this contributions they make, some of the family members who were earlier trapped in to care giving roles, have been freed to become productive by themselves.It is notable in particular, how the mothers have been made free to a large extent. However, it must also be mentioned here that during the initial period of rehabilitation, the work of the mothers also increase tremendously. This extra commitment on their part has not been without rich reward. 3. Access to services and facilities: There is more recognition for the disabled person within the various services such as health, education, resource provision by the divisional secretariats etc.It also has improved the system of providing the referral the much needed atten tion from the service sector. 4. Impact on social relations: In general, there is increased awareness among communities regarding disability situations and therefore the need for community members to work together. While there is more recognition for the disabled persons within the family, especially parents have come together to discuss common issues regarding the disabled children. In the CBR centres, there is a marked contribution by parents together as a community to make the programme a success.Particularly in one community, the programme also helped to unify a socially isolated community. 5. Prevention of Disabilities: Promoting the use of Rubella vaccine, improved nutrition through awareness and training on use of low-cost and natural foods, awareness on compatible marriages etc are seen as specific contribution of the programme. Apart from the above, the following are also identified as areas where there needs to be further improvement: 6. Capacity Building of Vocational Tra ining: The present vocational training that are done especially in the rural centres, has a greater otential for improvement in terms of concept and technical inputs. Developing of capacity of teachers handling this work is important. Further, they also require knowledge and skills to make links to markets and the demands. 7. Access to loans for those with vocational Training: At present, WDC CBR programme provides a lump sum amount to those graduating from the VT. What is not clear is the after-support to family as a unit such as access to loans and follow-up in the development of the income generating activity to a viable enterprise. 8.Community Awareness: It is observed that the greater emphasis of the CBR is on the families directly involved in the programme. This the documenter sees as a limitation. Involvement of the community as a whole will create a bigger and sustainable impact. 9. Self Help Group formation: Strong Self-Help groups in the communities where the CBR programme is implemented is considered an asset as it is not only able to provide stability, but also provide economic support involving both the family members of CBR and other members in the community.One other ability of a self help group is also its ability to tap resources within and outside community. 10. Parental Capacity Building: It is noticed that for any emergency or a need, look up to the staff of CBR to provide leadership. Through community capacity building programme, while it can reduce the work load of staff, it could also provide sustainability to the programme. Therefore, it is desirable that within the programme, capacity building of staff be treated as a specific focus to achieve the set objectives of the programme. 1. Advocacy: There are many issues for which advocacy are required. It is unclear on WDC role on policy advocacy. Two specific areas that has paused a challenge are the effort to do away with the special education units and the other is the poor knowledge of p arents and the clients on the rights for services and facilities for the disabled persons. 12. Linking community Development and Networking: The link between the efforts of the CBR with the community development and Networking which are key direction of WDC dose not surface clearly.Therefore, this coherence of the programme requires further enhancement as finally, goal achievement in communities are common. 11. RECOMMENDATIONS The current CBR programme has a big impact on the lives of the disabled people and make the way for the social development. It is indeed a programme with lot of potential. However there are still areas with the CBR program, the staff can look, further father develop and improve the standard of the community based rehabilitation process. 01) Developing the capacity of the staff in Assessing local needs and resource identifications:There is no one model of rehabilitation service that will suit all circumstances based on local situation. What is needed is a needs -based model for the different circumstances. Some early programmes of CBR were not successful because they did not undertake any research on the perception/needs of the target population, or even considered the availability of local resources. Although there has been improvement in this, the resource identification can be further harnessed. Additionally, there is much room for research based model development.While WDC staffs do understand the cultural barriers and surrounding, the disabled persons, their families and even how such children are hidden due to many different reasons, it is certainly beneficial to conduct in depth study to explore information in order to develop local models of intervention in a more accurate way. In this servies, information within the family systems, factors that influence marginalization of disabled person from participating in social activities, career aspiration by the disabled person, etc. should receive critically sharp focus. 02) Disability re lated Policies, and Programs and Preventive Measures:It is apparent that the WDC staff contributes much in the intervention, prevention and rehabilitation process of the disabled and over the years there is both qualitative and quantitative improvement in their work. This does not mean that there is no room for further improvement. The documenter observes that the knowledge of WDC staff in relation to the policies, programmes and preventive measurers that is available in the larger environment, including in the international arena would help in raising the awareness of communication and in motivating the communities more to wards advocacy.3) Building up resource centre for CBR: It is important to maintain an information centre or resource centre to provide the latest information about community based rehabilitation programs in different parts of the world and its new findings for the development to build or improve the capacity of the staff. There is also a need to upgrade the knowl edge of CBR staff in terms of latest development in the field of disability through personal enhancement as well as having access to IT information. Family Help Line: It is observed that the families of the disabled children supported by WDC mostly live in remote areas with minimum access to infrastructure such as transportation etc. Such families can also be identified as multi-deficit families with poverty, voieance, marginalization etc. Due to remoteness of location of the families, for staff to visit with limited resources is seen as difficult. A family – help line is therefore suggested to be developed when such families could reach at time of needs especially for legal, counselling and referral support, as such a system to access will support as an initial measure.This may be a neighbourhood women's group, knowledge of professionals help with close proximity etc. This may work as a quick and effective linkage between community and the CBR program. †¢ Support Groups : It is observed that most of the families of the disabled children are accessing the CBR centres for every need related to their family needs, thes creating an a opportunity to make the families totally dependaed on CBR program. So in the long run this is not good to reach the CBR objectives. Therefore, formation of Support groups in their communities is strongly recommended.Support groups enable individuals with disabilities and their families to exchange ideas where both positive and negative views can be expressed. It also provides a capacity within the community in emergency situations which support groups can provide. ? Hope ? Information ? Friendship ? Sharing ? Problem-solving ? Personal growth ? Advocacy 04) Forming neighbour hood Groups: It can consist of 10 to 20 members in neighbouring villages near to CBR centres having homogeneity in social status, sex, income, occupation, disabilities. It is the basic organization of poor and the marginalized formed and working at the grassroots level.It is a group that can take responsibilities in the issues where CBR program is functioning. It will be a great chance to build up a strong community relationship to reach disabled people in all communities. 05) Awareness programs: Although CBR programme conducts many awareness programs to the community, it is important to conduct awareness programs to increase the knowledge and to build a strong support system. It provides a foundation where the CBR programs can be implemented more effectively with the help of the community. The awareness program can cover the flowing anticipated outcomes Local leaders have increase awareness and their capacity to make changes in their community and the values to organise local people to take positive steps to support the rehabilitation of disabled people.†¢ Local people have to increased their sensitivity towards the disabilities and their vulnerabilities. †¢ Local people have greater confidence in their own ability to make appropriate changes as they can to promote community based support to the people with disabilities. †¢ Effective and ongoing community organization and action on safe-guards rights of the disabled. Improved local services and facilities in education, health, sanitation which have a big impact on the disabled children. †¢ To develop educated and confident people to take and speak of the issues related to self help measures. 06) Training of the CBR staffs: Efficient training of the newly appointed staff in the CBR program in order to have a positive out come in whole program. It is suggested that the staff get training in every aspects of rehabilitation care in the main Kandy centre, by being able to spend certain amount of time in every unit till they are exposed and skilled.