Background
Individuals with disabilities have the same need for cultural enrichment as individuals without disabilities and perhaps an even greater need. For individuals with disabilities, cultural activities are often their only outlet for social integration within society. Participation in cultural and leisure activities serves as an invaluable tool for enhancing their level of cognitive, motor and social functioning. Additionally, the opportunity for expression through creative activity promotes self-advocacy; it serves as a medium through which individuals with disabilities can make their own voices heard within society.
Despite the great importance of leisure programming for individuals with disabilities, ignorance has led to a serious deficiency of available programs in Israel. Relevant government ministries have not prepared satisfactory development plans, nor have they allotted sufficient funding for establishing frameworks for cultural and leisure programming for individuals with disabilities. The widely held but incorrect perception that leisure programming is an non-essential luxury is largely to blame for the lack of government attention and funding for such programming. In reality, such programming is essential for the well being of individuals with disabilities.
The current situation
While government involvement in this area has been sorely lacking, there has been a flurry of activity sponsored by various other organizations to promote leisure time programming for individuals with disabilities. Non-profit organizations involved in providing necessary services to the individuals with disabilities include among their services leisure time activities. Despite the limited resources of these organizations, they have made many achievements in this area. Through their efforts, individuals with disabilities can partake in such activities as choral groups, painting and photography courses, and they can even present their work through public exhibits. In recent years, theater groups made up of individuals with developmental disabilities have been formed, and have successfully performed all over the country. There have been serious developments in competitive sports for people with disabilities, and many Israelis with disabilities have achieved impressive international records.
Individuals with disabilities living outside of the family home have access to better and more varied extracurricular programming than those living in their parents' home. Once a person with disabilities has left his parents' home, the state reallocates the disability allowance received on behalf of the child. A portion of this allowance is rolled over to a special fund for cultural and leisure time activities (the 'Thirty Percent Fund'). Supervised community housing frameworks use monies from this fund to create a program of varied leisure activities for their residents. Some of these programs are, for a small fee, also open to individuals with disabilities living in their parents' homes. Such a program is the 'Si'im' program of the Shek'el Association in Jerusalem.
While there have been important developments in the area of cultural and leisure activities for individuals with disabilities, such programming has suffered from lack of state funding and adequate involvement on the national level. If this area were to get the attention it deserves, many more outstanding developments in creative expression by individuals with disabilities surely would emerge.
Bizchut's involvement in relevant legislation
Bizchut's activity in advocating cultural programming for people with disabilities is reflected in the draft legislation Equal Rights Law for People with Disabilities, 2000. This draft legislation, which passed its first reading in the Knesset in December 2000, deals with many areas of life, establishing the right of the individual with disabilities to dignity, equality and attention to his special needs. In the area of cultural and leisure activity, the legislation dictates that the Minister of Education, the Minister of Culture, Science, and Sport, the Minister of Communications, and the Minister of the Interior are to establish regulations regarding initiatives for development of cultural, leisure and athletic programs for individuals with disabilities. Such programs should promote leisure trips tailored for individuals with special needs, the formation of theater groups for the people with developmental disabilities, and other programs.
