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| His Favorite Song | May 25, 2008 |
Dr. Thomas-Markus Schindlmayr
10 July 1969 - 26 April 2008
WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you".
I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
- Louis Armstrong
| Jean-Pierre Gonnot | May 25, 2008 |
CRPD Secretariat, DESA
Dear Julia,
Dr. and Mrs. Schindlmayr,
Mrs. Baldock
We are gathered today with you, to pay tribute to the person and life of our friend and colleague Thomas Schindlmayr.
We grieve his loss. We miss him sorely.
It was Thomas’ wish that his memorial be held on the doorstep of the United Nations where he worked for the past five years, where his personal journey eventually weaved with his professional life.
Thomas lived an extraordinary life, a life of extraordinary challenges and accomplishments.
He touched so many lives in a way very few do. He was inspiring on a grand scale.
May the memories of Thomas’ life and fortitude help us through this time of sorrow.
……..
From the candle lit by Megan and Justin
Softly As You Leave Us, You Will Never Be Forgotten. We Love You And Miss You Tom.
Thank you.
| Dr. Wulf-Eike Schindlmayr | May 25, 2008 |
Thomas's Father
(Your excellencies), dear members of the diplomatic community, distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends of Thomas, ladies and gentlemen all.
(On behalf of all my and Julia’s family) I wish to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to the staff members of the Division for Social Policy & Development of the UN, who made it possible for all of us today to gather in this distinguished chapel just across the road from where Thomas last had his cherished desk. And thank you, Johan, for your touching words yesterday.
We are totally overwhelmed by the sheer number and intensity of responses from all over the world to the sad news of Thomas quietly slipping from us after his determined struggle against cancer, and we are equally overwhelmed by how many want to recall and share memories of Thomas here today.
Most of you would have known Thomas only for a number of years here at the United Nations. We know from him that these last years since joining the disability program were the fulfilment of lifelong held ambitions to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities, to make use his first hand experience. How wonderful that here he found the right task and challenge, the right team leader, team mates and counterparts to spread his wings to full extent.
For you to better understand why and how he became the Thomas you know, let me shed light on some events that helped or forced his development into the loveable, dedicated and communicative inspirer and challenger, whom we all remember and will hold dear to our hearts.
To his regret Thomas was born in Germany just before we migrated with him to Australia in 1970: he would have so loved to have dual citizenship like his younger siblings, but in the end he was proud to be German at heart, happy to call Australia home and most comfortable as a citizen of the world.
He spent his early walking years in Alice Springs in Central Australia. He was a happy and agile boy, always smiling, always ready for some mischief, either a chatterbox or quietly content to build Lego. He loved walking the creeks and water holes with Mum and the dog and, in pre-TV-times and he greatly looked forward to the weekly “Drive-in” sessions with John Wayne. He started with and loved “Kindy” in the Alice and he happily received and played with his first live toy, sister Inge in early 1973.
All this abruptly changed in September 1973 with our car accident, that left him a Paraplegic and wheelchair bound at the age of 4. For medical reasons we left Alice and moved to Adelaide, and then on to Melbourne, Victoria.
Melbourne was a lucky choice, because his medical needs were well catered for,
and we found a wonderful, progressive private school, Eltham College, which incorporated Thomas’ needs in its forward planning. There, together with his siblings -Inge & Wolfi- , he grew up from prep to year 10-level in an open learning environment tailored to his needs and abilities and totally integrated into school life.
Thomas soon compensated any lack of physical activities by soaking up like a sponge junk data and essential knowledge alike with such a vigour, that soon he drove parents and teachers mad with mischievous questions (such as to the capital of Bhutan or the National anthem of San Marino). He was quickly nick-named “Wheeling Encyclopedia” by his peers and he excelled in all subjects other than arts and music.
Most importantly, however, Melbourne was the home of the Paraplegic Sports Club of Victoria. From the age of 8, Thomas became an enthusiastic part of a spirit of equally handicapped children and adults, that strove to outwit disability through individual and competitive sport. Here, he not only built a trophy collection through training and inter-state and national competitions, but more importantly, he gained a tremendous self-confidence in his own near-unlimited abilities. Just to name 2: At 13, Thomas was the first Australian youngster under 20 to push 100 miles in less than 24 hours and he played wheelchair basket ball in the National Junior Basketball Team.
This self-confidence stayed with him ever after. He continued to have the conviction that he could do anything he set his mind to - including elephant riding and white water rafting in Nepal, tandem para-jumping, driving his own car and flying an aeroplane. And it was this self-confidence, that rarely made him ask for help, while always ready to help others.
In 1986 our family left Australia for Munich. We were able to enrol him in the European School Munich for the remaining high school years: Thomas thrived in the multi-national, multi-language and multi-cultural environment of the ESM; he convinced the ES-Board in Brussels that he should jump a year; he made teachers and peers view physical disability with different eyes and he participated with in-depth engagement in mock sessions of the European Parliament and of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Already then he thought the UN was fun! He ended up with the prestigious European Baccalaureate including a rare summa cum laude in philosophy in 1988.
After a year at the overcrowded and largely inaccessible Munich University he left us and headed with his car and gear for London, where the SOAS had assured him of his own back-door entrance to the facilities.
Thomas studied at SOAS and the LSE, achieving his undergraduate degree in Demography and his Master degree in Economics, and finally worked for IPPF. He lived at the YWCA, and I leave it Ngan Nguyen to tell us what really went on in London!
The family only met up with Thomas again in Canberra in 1993, when he moved in with us again to start with his PhD in Demography at the ANU.
I was glad that soon he found others to sharpen his intellectual claws with because I found myself more and more on the losing end of his sharp argumentative wit and incredible factual knowledge. I was proud and in awe of him at the same time.
Only at this stage did he introduce Julia to us, the best kept secret of his London years: she eventually came to settle down next to us in Canberra.
When we left Australia again in 1996, he stayed on, finished his PhD, and topped it with a Master in International Law. This was the time when he began his career as a prolific writer of well-researched papers, as we will hear later in more detail.
He jobbed as a research consultant, he went and passed the entry exams for the UN, always despairing of ever finding a proper job and passing time with additional correspondence studies. Then, in late 2001 he had several job offers at the same time, from the EU, from the UN in Geneva and from the Secretariat here in New York. Well, together with Julia he opted for the post in New York, they married and arrived in February 2003.
Edith and I again saw little of him until November 2006, when “His battle against Big C” began, and we once more returned to N.Y. in December last year, when his fight against recurring cancer started and finally forced him to stay away from the work he so loved.
Since then, Edith, Carolyne and I, Inge and Wolfi and his best friend Phil joined or took turns to support Julia and to accompany Thomas in his sufferings, his never-ceasing optimism for reprieve and, finally, his acceptance of the inevitable and his slow fading and slipping away from us. In all this time we have been in awe of the unswerving love and care of his wife Julia for him; we admired and relied on her courage, endurance and stamina; and so, let me say today: Julia, our hearts go out to you today with a big “Thank you“ from Edith and myself and from his siblings Inge and Wolfi; “thank you so much for having been there for our son and brother, for your strength and love to cuddle him until death”.
During hours spent at his bed side, Thomas often reflected with me on the deeper meaning and purpose of life and his life: we both found comfort in the thought, that perhaps the accident, which had rendered him a paraplegic as a child, was meant to be by higher guidance to prepare him for his mission in later adult life, the mission to improve the fate of other people with disabilities.
Well, sadly, his mission is over, and it is now up to all of you here to continue, where he had to leave off.
A “Good Onward Journey”, Thomas, and:
“See you somewhere, sometime”.
We remain your proud parents and siblings.
Thank you all and may Thomas always be with you in your memories.
| Ngan Nguyen | May 25, 2008 |
An old friend from London Times
| Jomo Kwame Sundaram | May 25, 2008 |
DESA
Thomas Schindlmayr was the public face of DESA in the effort to adopt a new global Convention for Persons with Disabilities. His recent and untimely death, at the young age of 38, is a terrible loss for us all.
Thomas was a key player in the DESA team who worked to support the negotiations that led to the Convention’s adoption in 2006 and its eventual signing by 129 countries (Zambia signed last week). The Convention entered into force on Saturday, the 3rd of May.
Thomas was a dedicated professional, working to open doors for persons with disabilities, by breaking down barriers, both physical as well as social.
When he joined DESA in 2003, he had passed the National Competitive Exams and had been selected by both the Population Division and the Division for Social Policy and Development. Population acted fastest, and Thomas joined the UN as a demographer.
Thomas had impressive academic and professional credentials in the field of population and well as geography, business management and international law. His intellectual curiosity was insatiable; his intellect matched by his amazing determination and commitment.
When Thomas joined the UN, it had just embarked on the daunting task of drafting an ambitious, human rights treaty that would uphold the dignity of all persons with disabilities.
When Thomas eventually joined the team that serviced the negotiations—after repeatedly making sure that he was offered the job because of his professional talents, not because he was a wheelchair user—he found, to his delight, that the UN had set the bar very high for itself. The negotiations were progressing very rapidly; the very strong and precise language of certain fundamental articles was raising concern in several quarters; and organizations of persons with disabilities, contrary to UN established practice, had no intention of leaving Governments alone at the negotiation table before the last “i” was dotted and the last “t” was crossed.
The practical organization of the negotiations was undermined by a shameful lack of accessibility of the buildings and documentation at UNHQ. The scale of problems faced by persons with disabilities – as well as the human wealth they represented – was neither on the radar screen of major development actors or human rights experts and activists.
Thomas made a critical difference on so many levels. He was both tireless and forceful in his efforts to address accessibility issues at the UN, by raising awareness, educating colleagues and working out solutions despite all bureaucratic hurdles.
Thomas understood, more than anyone, that mobility in the UN Headquarters for a person in a wheelchair was no ordinary endeavor. He often had to use freight elevators and obscure passageways to move about the building. To speak in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium, he had to enter from a 42nd Street entrance, but could still not speak from the stage. Thanks to Thomas, Conference Room 4 became more accessible, with the construction of a ramp to the podium and the removal of seats to accommodate wheelchairs. For press conferences in Room 226, a special ramp was built as a result of his efforts.
During the last leg of negotiations of the Convention, when communication became critical, Thomas did marvels. He managed to consistently provide the Press Corps with information that was accurate while giving it a light spin that could help advance the negotiations.
While Thomas knew that his own disability drew attention to the UN’s work on disability issues, he never used it to evoke pity. True to the letter and spirit of the Convention, Thomas simply worked to be treated and respected on an equal basis with others in his affable, amiable, and yet persistent style. People were always impressed with his deep and wide knowledge and profound dedication.
For many decades, the United Nations has been at the forefront of promoting the inclusion and participation of persons with disabilities in society. No one more than Thomas Schindlmayr better personified the Organization’s commitment and leadership. Through his work, he opened many doors and minds. At the UN, he is already missed.
| Thomas Buettner | May 25, 2008 |
Population Division of DESA, UN
Liebe Familie Schindlmayr.
Ich habe Thomas seit seinem Eintritt in die UN gekannt. Wir hatten sehr angeregte und stimulierende Gespraeche als Thomas noch in der Population Division arbeitete. Spaeter beschraenkten sich die Kontakte auf gelegentliche Treffen, meistens im Fahrstuhl. Aber immer waren die Begegnungen mit ihm angenehm und bereichernd. Thomas war ein guter Kollege und ein verstaendisvoller und froehlicher Mensch. Wir weren ihn sehr vermissen.
I am now reading to you a tribute to Thomas Schindlmayr by his mentor and colleague Jack Caldwell, an eminent demographer and recipient of the 2004 United Nations Population Award.
Jack Caldwell’s tribute is written and will be read in the first person singular
(for the detailed wording of Jack Caldwell tribute: see Canberra Memorial Service)
| Johan Schölvinck | May 25, 2008 |
Tribute by the director of the Division for Social Policy and Development, DESA, UN.
The best thing that ever happened to our Division was when Thomas joined us. I remember it vividly. Here was Thomas frustrated in another part of our Department and eager to move on. And here was I equally eager to have him become part of us. A little dance, a bit of conniving, a clever little chuckle from Thomas and Voila there was Thomas with us, where he belonged. And belong he did. He not only thrived once he joined us, just his being with us inspired all around him. This inspiration came in many ways: intellectually, by his dedication to his work, by his humour, his smile and chuckle which put everything in perspective, and especially his unbelievable stubbornness.
Of course most of us remember him his relentless pursuit to bring about the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. And indeed, he, more than anyone else was instrumental in making that happen. But he was much more than a one cause person. He wrote refereed articles, op-ed pieces, stayed abreast of development issues and basically used his most agile mind to the fullest.
Whenever he wheeled himself into my office it was a pleasure to listen and argue about some fine point either academic or political. Needless to say, Thomas invariably carried the day. He was a renaissance man. Although he was a man with a disability, you never were really aware of that when you met with him. He transcended all that baggage and made you oblivious to his condition. This was an enormous gift that Thomas brought to you: no pity, no embarrassment. I remember watching with him this incredible movie called “roller-ball”. Here were these tough guys in wheelchairs playing a game that the best of us would never be able to sustain. I looked at Thomas, frail, but smiling sending the signal that if he had been in that game he would have been equally tough.
And tough he was, not only in fighting the UN bureaucracy to make our buildings accessible but especially in fighting the horrible illness that ultimately has taken him away from us. His mind was incredibly strong as his body wasted away.
While the best day was when Thomas joined us, the worse thing that ever happened to us was the day that Thomas was taken away from us, from the place where he belonged. Thomas has left an indelible imprint on all of us. We can only thank him for that and carry forward the cause he believed in passionately and unconditionally.
I will miss his presence, as I know you all will, and know that he is one of the few who are irreplaceable. To his wife Julia, his parents Dr. and Mrs. Schindlmayr and Julia’s mother, Mrs. Boldock, I wish you much strength in these most difficult times.
Johan Scholvink
13 May 2008
| Patience Stephens | May 24, 2008 |
A good collegue and friend
Tribute to Thomas
It was a dreary and cold day in February 2003. The weather swung between snow and a freezing drizzle. I had been asked to receive Thomas Schindlmayr, who was joining my section. Thomas arrived on the 19th floor clearly cold and wet. He had pushed through the snow, the cold drizzle and the freezing Manhattan puddles.
Instinctively, I tried to make Thomas comfortable, offered to take his wet jacket, get him tissues, a hot drink, settle him in his office - - in short, mother him! He graciously allowed me to help him, for that day only! In the days, weeks and months to follow, I would discover that this young man was not only self-sufficient – he thrived on doing things himself. He would devote every energy and intellect, to overcoming the challenges along his path.
Our work relations in the months to follow showed me that Thomas had an intense curiosity about everything intellectual and he eagerly and adeptly applied his broad knowledge in the fields of law and demography to the work of the Section. We had a mutual respect for each other’s intellect and spent a lot of time debating issues. Which population policies work best? Which do not work? How do we assess a government’s position on a policy issue in the absence of an overt statement? How could we improve the section’s work in this area? And so together we produced for the first time, a Guide to streamline the section’s work on how to classify population policies. We discussed population and social and economic development issues even as we walked home, often continuing the conversation for a while even after we reached our destination. On these walks home, Thomas often pushed along and I tried to keep up the pace! I think he enjoyed it when I had to run to keep up with him!
Ironically, this enthusiasm and energy would be the source of our downfall. Thomas desperately needed interaction and opportunities to grow. Maybe he knew he would have a short life within which to accomplish a lot. He wanted to make a difference. I saw Thomas become increasingly unhappy; the typical speed and zeal with which Thomas would push as we walked home slowed. But nothing could block the characteristic resolve and determination with which Thomas pushed into the UN against that February snow?
Thomas worked hard to stay healthy. He told me he had opted for a manually operated chair to preserve his health. His vitamin regimen was strict, and he introduced me and many others to the Morrison Center where some of us still go religiously. His diet was healthy and he would always give his wife Julia the credit for ensuring this. I came to know and admire Julia, Thomas’ lovely wife to whom Thomas was absolutely devoted.
It was no surprise when Thomas, with great excitement, told me one day in September 2004 that he was on his way out. The Fall brought new hope and new energies to accomplish his dreams. It was his turn to “mother” me as he left to live those dreams. “Patience”, he urged, “you’ve got to move on too.” And so roughly 3 months after Thomas left, almost as if he had gone and orchestrated it, a door opened for me to follow my friend and colleague to the Division for Social Policy and Development where we began new lives in a nurturing environment. Unfortunately, Thomas had to leave so soon.
Yet Thomas thrived in his new Division which gave him opportunities and responsibilities previously unfathomed. He was happy and would stop by and tell me about his latest accomplishments. He was excited to deal with the media and have an opportunity to promote a global understanding of the challenges of persons with disabilities. He sped down the corridor to my office one day to show me his PAS in which he had received superb ratings. This, for him, was in a sense, a new lease on life; and for the years that remained of his life, he would chart new pathways for persons with disabilities. This zeal and passion to ensure full accessibility for persons with disabilities will live well beyond Thomas
When I ponder why Thomas would want me to say a few words at his memorial, I cannot help but think it is because of the way our individual paths crossed in so many ways – along both rough and easier paths. It is because he knew how much I respected him and believed in his abilities. It was, perhaps, Julia, because he knew that I have been where you are today and that I can assure you that you will persevere.
So even as we mourn for Thomas and lament his short life, it is my belief and in accordance with my faith, that God truly made a way for Thomas where there seemed to be no way. Both physically and metaphorically, access ramps appeared along his routes. Thomas has left a path that many of us, even in double the lifespan Thomas had, cannot achieve.
May Thomas now rest in perfect peace.
| Dan Shepard | May 24, 2008 |
| Harold Snider | May 24, 2008 |
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