disABILITY FOCUS

This week, we continue discussing and illustrating how Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) can contribute towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, with a focus on goal number seven and eight. Goal number seven is on environmental sustainability. Environmental risks, such as poor sanitation and water quality, and natural disasters can cause ill health and disability. Persons with disabilities often find it difficult to move around their homes and communities due to inaccessible buildings. They face barriers in accessing community facilities such as wells and latrines and they are often excluded from disaster management activities. CBR contributes to environmental sustainability by ensuring communities involve people with disabilities when designing safe water and sanitation facilities; making recommendations and modifications to ensure access to existing facilities; and ensuring disaster response training within communities considers the needs of

This week, we continue highlighting how Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) can contribute towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with a focus on goal number four, five and six, which we did not discuss last week. Goal number four is on reducing child mortality. Mortality rates for children with disabilities are difficult to estimate. However, it has been suggested that they may be as high as 80 percent in countries where under-five mortality as a whole has decreased to below 20 percent. Children with disabilities are more at risk of dying, not only because of life threatening medical conditions or lack of access to health services, but also because in many cultures they are neglected or left to die. CBR programmes can contribute to reducing child mortality by ensuring early identification of children with impairments and referral of children to specialised medical and rehabilitation services where required; providing disability awareness training to

This week we highlight the role of Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) in achieving the millennium development goals for people with disabilities. We begin with goal number one which focuses on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Poverty is both a cause and consequence of disability. People with disabilities face stigma and discrimination in their communities and are frequently denied their basic rights such as food, education, employment and access to health services. People with disabilities may incur extra costs, such as those related to healthcare, and they are less likely to work. CBR promotes livelihoods and employment by identifying and overcoming barriers that prevent participation; exploring potential employment opportunities for people with disabilities in their communities; providing or ensuring access to skills training for income-generating activities and employment. One of the examples of the CBR programmes that saught to fight poverty among persons with disabil

The National Policy on Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities adopts the Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) as a national strategy in view of its proven potential to contribute to the empowerment of persons with disabilities in selected districts in Malawi. For someone new to the disability rights advocacy, the term CBR may seem puzzling at the first sight. In this case, we will endeavour not only to define the term but also provide more practical elucidation and historical insights. There is a wide diversity of meanings currently attached to the term “CBR”. The reason is that CBR is not just a concept or a working definition, but also an ideology, assuming that community members are willing and able to mobilise local resources and to provide appropriate services to their persons with disabilities. The debate is very much about how far local people can do this by themselves. We therefore have to first agree on a ‘working definition” of CBR for this article. M

The National Policy on Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities recognises that disability is a cross-cutting issue. It acknowledges the fact that disability affects and is affected by all aspects of life namely, economic, social, cultural, political, environmental and technological factors. A comprehensive policy and action plan to address disability issues and their effects on persons with disabilities should be based, therefore, on a thorough exploration and appreciation of its relationships with other relevant Government policies and legislations. The National Policy on Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities is linked to a number of other national policies, legislation and instruments such as the Constitution of Malawi which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of disability and promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities. When drafting the National Policy, the stakeholders took into consideration the fact that the Vision 2020