UN reward to Poland

UNITED NATION Polish President Lech Kaczynski on Monday received a United Nations award for the country’s efforts to integrate disabled people into public life.Kaczynski received the award from Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the granddaughter of former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a ceremony attended by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.“Poland’s society is showing how to create an equitable society,” Annan said. “I hope many more nations will follow,” Annan said in a brief speech.Kaczynski said the first steps to offer better living conditions to the disabled in Poland came from the Solidarity free trade union movement that was born out of worker protests in 1980 and helped topple communism nine years later.“In our society, we try to build solidarity as an important social value,” Kaczynski said after receiving a sculpture of Roosevelt, who had polio and used a wheelchair as he led the U.S. through the Great Depression and World War II.The head of a Polish association caring for the deaf and the blind, Grzegorz Kozlowski, received a US$ 50,000 check that came with the award.The award was established in 1995 to encourage nations to care for the disabled.Under communism, Poland, a nation of some 38 million, had few special public facilities for the disabled, who largely had to live at home. It has since guaranteed equal rights for them in the constitution and passed legislation obliging employees to offer jobs to the disabled.Cities also are making efforts to eliminate barriers to physical access to offices, schools and other public places.A recent television campaign, with participation of young employees in wheelchairs, urges companies to offer more opportunities to the disabled.Kaczynski was on a four-day visit to New York to address the annual U.N. General Assembly debate.