1. COUNTRY DATA

1-1 General Information

The republic of Vanuatu is a Y shape of 80 small islands spread over a distance of 1,100 square kilometers in the South West Pacific with a population of 196,000 people (2003 estimate) and it divided into six provinces.

The provinces are ;

1. Torba Province
2. Sanma Province
3. Penama Province
4. Malamp Province
5. Shefa Province
6. Tafea Province

PORT VILA is its Capital City.
The country became an independent state from France and Britain on 30th July 1980 and has a parliamentary system of government.

The indigenous people speak over 100 different local languages. The official medium of communication is English and French. The national language is Bislama.

There are different ethnic groups living in Vanuatu including Pacific Islanders. These ethnic groups are Australians, New Zealand, Chinese and other Asians, Europeans, Americans and some other ethnic groups.

1-2 Disability Related Issues

No national definition of disability as yet. Adopt the international definition.

The 1989 national population censes puts the number of people with disabilities at around 2,000 people. It is estimated that there are over 5,000 people with disabilities in Vanuatu.

VSDP currently has a total of 789 registered clients of different types of disabilities. The common types of disabilities that found are ;

1. Hearing
2. Physical
3. Visual Impairment and
4. Intellectual.

VSDP carried out a survey in 2005 in the Province of Tafea. Blow is a table showing some of the clients finding from the Tafea Disability Survey.

Table 1 : Population by the Islands in TAFEA Province

ISLANDS	POPULATION
Tanna	25,840
Anietyum	821
Futuna	402
Erromango	1,560
Aniwa	424
Total Population	29,047

Table 2 below lists the types of disabilities and the number of disabilities people reported. To clarify, one person may have reported more than one disability hence if one person reported being both physically disabled and blind then the total number of disabilities is two not one. The total number of disabilities reported was 559.

Table 2 : Disabilities Population by Types of Disabilities and Ages

TYPES OF DISABILITY	Ages 0 - 5	Ages 6 - 14	Ages 15 - 20	Ages 21 - 30	Ages 31 - 39	Ages 40 - 49	Ages 50 +	TOTAL	% of TOTAL
Autism	0	4	3	1	0	0	0	8	1.4
Blind / Low Vision	2	19	9	10	5	14	42	101	18
Cerebral Palsy	1	3	2	0	2	0	1	9	1.6
Deaf / Hearing Impaired	6	38	31	28	10	6	19	138	25
Epilepsy	0	9	17	8	1	5	1	41	7.3
Intellectual	1	29	19	9	9	4	3	74	13
Physical	11	35	19	25	19	24	40	173	31
Psychiatric	0	1	1	4	3	2	4	15	2.7
TOTAL	21	138	101	85	49	55	110	559
% of TOTAL	3.75	25	18	15	8.75	9.7	19.8		100

Physical disabilities were the highest report with 173 (31%) followed by Deaf/Hearing impairment with 139 (25%) and Blind / Low Vision with 101 (18%).

Autism and cerebral palsy were the least reported with 8 cases (1.4%), reported for Autism and 9 cases (1.6%) reported for Cerebral palsy. This may be because the local community is not aware or familiar with these types of disabilities. Also these categories are very specific compared with the others.

Policy / Laws

No specific law on disability as yet. However, Vanuatu now has a national disability policy in place as of 2005 and has also recently established a National Disability Council to addressed disability issues at a national level with members from both Government and the two disability organizations, Vanuatu Society for Disabled People (VSDP) and Disability Promotion and Advocacy Association (DPA).

Persons with disabilities are cared for and supported by their respective parents and families. There is not direct financial assistance given to people with disabilities, except with the exception of few individuals who are privilege to be sponsored through education or through equipment support.
Vanuatu Government does not provide direct financial assistance to people with disabilities nor the local disability organizations.
Both VSDP and DPA relay on donor funds for their programme.