Mérida lags behind in accommodating the handicap, advocates say

A program to allow the disabled to tour Mérida’s historic center. 2015 file photo

Mérida, Yucatán — The historic city is like a blast from the past, and not in a good way, when it comes to how the disabled are treated.

That’s the opinion of Dulce María Caballero Encalada, the president of Aypadem, which represents parents of people with disabilities.

The city is decades behind in both education and in providing ramps and adequate sidewalks for the handicapped, she said.

Caballero Encalada’s comment was published ahead of a regional meeting that begins today. “Mechanism for consultation and dialogue for the follow-up of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Mexico.” The Human Rights Commission of the state of Yucatán reported that the two-day meeting will be attended by more than 50 organizations from nine states.

“In all areas we have the look of 40 years ago,” said Caballero Encalada, who complained that trees make the sidewalks impassable to the wheelchair-bound.

Yucatán has a higher-than-average rate of people with disabilities, but no studies indicate why that is the case, she said.

The meeting will be held at the Residencial Hotel in the Centro, convened by the Mexico Coalition for the Rights of the People With Disability (Coamex) and the Mexican Confederation of Organizations in Favor of the Person with Intellectual Disabilities, AC.

Organizers will come out of the meeting and collaborate with other regions on a status report directed to the United Nations,

 

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