Girl with cerebral palsy fights for accessibility on airplanes

By Kristie Rieken
The Associated Press

DONNA MCWILLIAM / AP Rasha Kawar, 9, left, and her friend Emily Roach, laugh as they play with makeup during a break in Rasha's physical therapy.

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Rasha has begun a crusade to make airplane restrooms bigger after having a hard time negotiating one in her wheelchair while flying home last summer from a visit with her grandparents in Israel.

She started an online petition asking Congress to pass a law that would require all new airplanes to have at least one wheelchair-accessible restroom. The petition is up to almost 5,000 signatures, and lawmakers and organizations that help the disabled are taking notice.

"It is one thing to be stuck on a plane with no accessible bathroom," said Stephen Bennett, president and chief executive of United Cerebral Palsy. "It's quite another when a 9-year-old takes it to the level she has."

Last summer, Rasha and her mother burst into tears when they couldn't get Rasha's clothes back on after she used a small airplane restroom. Her mother, Laila Kawar, said Rasha looked at her and said: "This is so unfair. What are we going to do about it?"

When she got home, Rasha typed a letter to President Bush. It took her almost three weeks.

Rasha has little control over her muscles, but can control her head. She can talk, but people who don't know her well have a difficult time understanding her. Instead, she communicates by using a pointer, attached to a piece of headgear, to type out words on a computer keyboard. Machines translate her words into audio or written text.

Despite her limitations, she attends public school in suburban Dallas with the help of an aide, and will enter the fourth grade this month. She learned to read at age 4 and finds it exasperating when people assume she is mentally disabled because of her wheelchair.

"I am smart," she said. "My body just doesn't do what I want it to."

The White House responded to Rasha with a letter signed by Bush, but it did not address her problem, her mother said. That's when Rasha and her mother decided to start the online petition, which has signatures from people around the world.

Many people who sign the petition include short notes. One reads: "My 8-year-old disabled son and I have had this experience too many times. With all the space on airplanes, it is grossly unfair not to allocate a few more feet so that disabled people can travel with dignity." Another wrote, "You opened my eyes to something I could not see. I proudly stand beside you."
 
Supporter U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, contacted the Federal Aviation Administration, which in turn contacted the Transportation Department. The department sent Rasha a letter explaining the federal guidelines relating to accessible restrooms and said the main barrier to including those restrooms on all airplanes is cost.

"Many airlines are losing huge amounts of money these days," wrote Robert Ashby, a regulation and enforcement attorney at the Transportation Department. "It's hard for the department to tell them to lose even more."

He said that accessible restrooms would cost about $12,000-$13,000 each, but that the major loss for airlines would be space. Adding one restroom would take away two to four seats on most airplanes, which he said translates into millions of dollars in lost revenue.

The Americans with Disabilities Act does not cover airplane restrooms, he said, but the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986 requires that airlines be accessible to people with disabilities. That act requires airplanes with two aisles to have one wheelchair-accessible restroom. Those with only one aisle, like the one the Kawars were traveling on, are not legally required to do so.

Rasha and her mother plan to send her petition to the major airlines as well as the Transportation Department later this summer. The United Cerebral Palsy organization is helping Rasha collect more signatures by a link to her petition on their Web site.

Rasha says she will work as long as necessary for the change. She knows the fight will not be easy, but dealing with adversity is second nature for her.

"Rasha has lots of determination," her mother said. "She does not accept that she cannot do things."