Persons with Disabilities: From Dream to Application

Ramallah, Palestine Before the talking computer became part of training programs for the blind, the idea of accessing technology for many visually impaired individuals seemed more like a luxury than a right. Before discussions about integration and participation became a fixed part of institutional discourse, daily questions were more direct: How does a person move? Where do they learn? How do they obtain assistive devices? Who helps them access job opportunities? In this space, the story of "Disabled Without Borders" began. The organization was not born from a sudden administrative decision. Its documents state that the idea began about four years before its official establishment, in response to a need that existing institutions were unable to meet at a minimum level. On July 15, 2007, the organization was registered in Ramallah as a non-governmental, non-profit, non-political, and non-partisan organization, placing the empowerment of persons with disabilities and advocating for their rights among its core objectives. However, returning to the organization's beginnings reveals that the idea was not merely to establish an association that provides assistance. The founding documents present the organization with two parallel paths: providing services to persons with disabilities from various categories while simultaneously working to raise their awareness of their rights, integrating them into society, and involving them in decision-making. From the outset, the need for more accurate data regarding the number of persons with disabilities and the classification of their disabilities was emphasized, as any policy or service requires knowledge of whom it targets and what they need. This point is almost the key to understanding the entire experience of the organization. When the problem is merely a lack of assistive devices, the intervention can end with providing the device. However, when the issue lies in the surrounding environment, in law, school, workplace, transportation, or access to information, the solution becomes larger than individual assistance. Thus, the organization set among its goals awareness, training, networking, advocacy, and rights defense, alongside health, rehabilitation, education, employment, and providing assistive devices, including mobility chairs, Braille printing machines for the blind, and hearing aids for the deaf. Over the years, these goals transformed into a range of activities and services that the organization documents in its profile. The organization states that it has provided 450 wheelchairs in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Jerusalem, contributed to providing prosthetic limbs, offered crutches and hearing aids for the deaf, and assisted persons with disabilities in obtaining job opportunities in collaboration with the Palestinian Authority. In the health sector, data indicates cooperation in performing surgeries, agreements for free medical examinations, and reducing the cost of eyeglasses, in addition to agreements with doctors and consultants to treat children for free. In education, the organization speaks of providing free study seats for students with disabilities in Palestinian universities. However, these numbers do not mean that the road was straightforward. The press material that covered the organization in its early years paints a picture of an institution trying to establish itself at a time when funding was not guaranteed. It rented a headquarters but faced difficulties in paying its rent, despite promises of support. At the same time, it spoke of plans to create broader legal, media, and educational activities and to build a network of relationships outside Palestine. Here, the paradox of civil society work becomes clear: the institution working to fill gaps in services provided to persons with disabilities was itself seeking the resources that would allow it to continue. Nevertheless, its presence did not stop at the service side. In 2020, the organization participated in organizing a press conference in collaboration with the General Union of Persons with Disabilities regarding Palestinian prisoners with disabilities in occupation prisons, in an event held at the Government Media Center in Ramallah. This reflects its activity's transition to legal issues related to persons with disabilities, not just social and health services. In 2022, the organization, alongside the General Union of Persons with Disabilities and supportive institutions, participated in a campaign to distribute 100 wheelchairs in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian news agency "Wafa," 40 wheelchairs were distributed at the campaign's launch, with efforts ongoing to distribute the remainder. This type of work illustrates the nature of the role the organization has chosen for itself: it is not merely a provider of a single service, nor a rights entity that settles for data, but rather attempts to navigate between immediate needs and the broader issue behind them. A mobility chair is not just a means of transport. For a person living in an unprepared home, neighborhood, or institution, it may be the difference between the ability to leave the house and staying inside. The same applies to assistive devices for the blind. The organization recalls that it organized courses in talking computer programs for the blind years ago, describing this step as a pioneering initiative in Palestine at the time. Years later, the idea returns in the form of a new course for the talking computer for the blind. On June 1, 2026, the organization opened a dedicated course, within a program it stated would cover nine governorates in the West Bank. This information may seem like a small detail amid a long history of work, but it actually speaks to a change in the nature of needs. Access to a computer is no longer a marginal technical issue. A student needs it for studying, a job seeker needs it for applications and communication, an employee needs it to complete tasks, and a citizen needs it to access a vast amount of information and services. For the blind person, having a screen reader and learning to use the computer correctly can change their level of independence in dealing with documents, files, and information. Therefore, training itself becomes part of the integration process, not an additional activity on its margins. However, the experience of "Disabled Without Borders" opens a broader door than just training and services. In its documents, the organization links its work to the concept of full participation and integration, and includes in its mission working through networking, advocacy, and capacity building. This intersects with one of the most sensitive issues in the Palestinian disability file: the difference between the existence of rights in texts and their accessibility in daily life. The material that addressed the organization in its early days criticized the non-implementation of the Disabled Persons Rights Law No. 4 of 1999 and called for its articles to be transformed from legal texts into actual procedures, including those related to the employment rate of persons with disabilities in institutions. At that time, the organization candidly raised the issue: the problem is not always the absence of law, but rather the absence of implementation, oversight, and integration among responsible entities. This issue remains essential in any discussion about integration. The existence of a law does not mean that the building has become accessible, nor that transportation has become available, nor that the school or university can automatically accommodate a student with a disability, nor that the labor market has opened up for them. The situation is more complicated in the Palestinian case, where these problems intersect with poverty and limited resources, as well as the reality of occupation, checkpoints, and difficulties in mobility. Old material about the organization documented, for example, complaints related to military checkpoints and the difficulty of passage for persons with disabilities, mentioning a case where a person using a wheelchair had to travel a long distance to reach a means of transport after being prevented from passing by car. Here, disability becomes part of a broader problem: not all obstacles are within the person's body, and some are created by the surrounding environment. Therefore, discussions about integration cannot be limited to providing assistive devices, despite their importance. Integration requires infrastructure, education, transportation, job opportunities, accessible technology, enforceable laws, and institutions that listen to persons with disabilities when making decisions affecting them. This is precisely the space the organization seeks to work in. It is not difficult to find an institution that provides assistance to a needy person. The difficulty lies in building a path that makes the person less dependent on assistance the next time. From here, one can understand the transition within the experience of "Disabled Without Borders" from the wheelchair to training, from health service to education, from assistive devices to advocacy and pressure. Services exist, but they are not the only goal. The goal, as the organization's documents state, is full participation and integration into society. After years of its establishment, this idea also seems present in its current activities. The expanding talking computer course covering several governorates is not separate from an experience that began years before it; it is a new link in a path based on a simple idea: that access to knowledge, technology, and work is not a privilege, and that a blind person should not remain a recipient of assistance simply because they cannot see. The organization's history, then, cannot be summarized in the number of wheelchairs it distributed or the courses it organized. These numbers are important because they prove what has been achieved, but they do not alone explain why the need for such institutions continues. The most important question remains outside the numbers: why do persons with disabilities need all this effort to access rights that should already be available to them? Perhaps here lies the true story of "Disabled Without Borders." The institution that began with the idea of meeting needs that existing institutions were unable to cover found itself over time working in a larger space: providing a service, then attempting to remove the cause of the need for it, and then demanding that these rights become a natural part of the work of institutions and society. Between the first wheelchair and the new talking computer course, the tools have changed, but the issue remains the same: that the existence of a disability should not be a reason for excluding its owner from education, work, movement, knowledge, or participation. And this cannot be accomplished by a single organization. Civil institutions can fill a gap, provide a service, and bring an issue to the forefront. But they cannot alone make society accessible to everyone. That requires public policy, enforceable laws, institutions that take responsibility, and for persons with disabilities themselves to be part of the decisions that determine the shape of the services provided to them. Thus, the experience of "Disabled Without Borders" deserves to be read as part of a larger story in Palestinian society: the story of a group that does not demand to be treated as an exception but rather to have an equal opportunity for access and participation. The difference between the two is significant. Assistance ends when it is delivered. However, a right is supposed to remain valid even when there is no one to provide it on behalf of its owner, and this is what the organization "Disabled Without Borders" seeks to achieve.