The Short History Of 10 – 16 May Disability Awareness Week

First, I apologize for writing about some information that I could not verify. I made serious efforts to reach the facts. I accessed UN General Assembly notes, read documents, and conducted AI searches, but I could never reach the original sources. Nevertheless, since I am sure that some misinformation is circulating in the community, I wanted to write this section. If there is anything you would like to correct, please let me know.

In Turkey, it is believed that the week of May 10–16 was accepted by the United Nations and is an internationally recognized awareness week. This is incorrect, and it can also be verified from the United Nations’ special days page. Except for some days dedicated to specific disability groups, there is no special day for disability recognized by the UN other than December 3rd.

So, where did this May 10–16 come from? The UN declared 1981 as The International Year of Disabled Persons. Within that year, the period between 1983 and 1992 was also declared as the Decade of Disabled Persons, and an action plan was published. According to information I heard from a disabled rights activist but could not verify, the dates May 10–16 began to be celebrated as a disability awareness week within the scope of this action plan globally. When the Decade of Disabled Persons ended in 1992, December 3rd began to be celebrated as World Disability Day rather than the week on May.

Turkey do not stop celebrating May 10–16 and continued to commemorate this week as an awareness week along with December 3rd.