The year 2003 was designated the European Year of People with Disabilities (EYPD) by the European Commission. It is sometimes called the European Year of Disabled People.
The European Commission set aside 12 million euros to recognise the European Year of People with Disabilities.
The Year was officially launched under the Greek Presidency in Athens on 26 January 2003. The opening ceremony in Athens was co-hosted by Julie Fernandez.
Famous quotes containing the words european, year, people and/or disabilities:
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Mothers are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes who appear once a year on a greeting card with their virtues set to prose, but women who have been dealt a hand for life and play each card one at a time the best way they know how. No mother is all good or all bad, all laughing or all serious, all loving or all angry. Ambivalence rushes through their veins.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)
“[A trip to France] will make you adore your own country, it’s soil, it’s climate, it’s equality, liberty, laws, people and manners. My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“A child is not a salmon mousse. A child is a temporarily disabled and stunted version of a larger person, whom you will someday know. Your job is to help them overcome the disabilities associated with their size and inexperience so that they get on with being that larger person.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)