Empowering Women with Disabilities in University’s Libraries in Developing Countries: Inclusive Design and Social-Economic Empowerment

Abstraksi

Abstract The Persons with disabilities right is regarded as significantly crucial by the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). Therefore empowerment strategies are needed to remove the barriers faced by PwDs. In the Indonesian context, Act No. 8 the Year 2016 have recognised the rights of Person with Disabilities. Unfortunately, the UNCRPD implementation appeared not to be effective enough. Many building facilities were not built in favour of the PwDs, especially the educational facility. Therefore, Inclusive Design (ID) framework is needed. The poor educational accessibility further causes economic opportunities, poverty, and poor health. The University Library is found as the central service for higher degree education as well as a community hub. In the developed and democratised countries, inclusive design practices were fully accepted, on the other hand, for developing countries, the ID framework may not be taken because of five possible problems, limited PwDs participation, low level of education of the PwDs, limited knowledge of ID standards among stakeholders, high design-and-construction cost of the accessible building and limited design. The research is trying to answer the research question of: “What are the barriers and success points of the implementation of Inclusive Design in Indonesia and Australia?” The research will be conducted with qualitative methods in two libraries in Australia and Indonesia. It will involve decision makers, architects, librarians, and students with disabilities. An introductory Project in Petra Christian University had been conducted in 2017-2018. The interim findings are: - PCU Library redesign was proposed following inclusive design and universal design proposal. The design was produced following the USER – CENTERED because considering the need for persons with disabilities, senior persons, pregnant women, women with babies and children. - The barriers to implementing an ID framework is the limited awareness of decision-makers that do not understand the ID concept. - The temporary result of the ID process is the construction of Special Assistance Corner and Disability Service in PCU Library. Moreover, it has increased of PwDs use in libraries. - The benefits of the ID application is obvious such as improving the education access to PwDs. The idea also will alleviate the poverty of PwDs especially the Women with Disabilities, especially combined with the following libraries program to generate, such as involvement of women with disabilities in the redesign of the library design interior in the other public or university libraries. An example of current women empowerment conducted by PCU Library is the Products’ Packaging Training for Medium and Small Enterprise (MSE) in Pagesangan, Jambangan. PCU Library and the Surabaya Municipality Archives and Library Section collaborate for the preparation of Taman Bacaan Masyarakat (Community Reading Facility or CRF) competition.