Reducing Poverty |
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| Happy beneficiary in Mozambique |
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| Self Help Group meeting of parents and others at Madapura village |
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| LARDEF taking ownership of a bakery kit (Angola) |
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Disability and poverty form a vicious circle, disabled people are more likely to be poor and poverty makes disability more likely. These factors are acknowledged in both the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the African and Asia-Pacific Decades of Persons with Disabilities, but many mainstream poverty reduction programmes still fail to include disabled people.
DDP knows that physical rehabilitation is often a pre-requisite for social inclusion, but alongside basic service provision, our work has broadened to tackle exclusion from earning a livelihood.
In Angola, our work with LARDEF, a national DPO partner, includes setting up income generating schemes for disabled people and their families - many of them internally displaced and returning refugees. Our first programme for creating livelihoods for amputees was the Dignidade community based transport co-operatives. Next the Twendi and Tchilema programmes supported small income generating projects (IGPs) in rural communities and LARDEF’s campaign to promote the inclusion of disabled people in mainstream development projects. The Avante programme, which strengthens LARDEF as a national DPO, also brings material benefits to disabled people’s lives through IGPs.
In Mozambique, we supported the Mozambique Red Cross Society through Centro Ortopédico Jaipur (COJ) and ADEMO, the national association of disabled people, to initiate poverty reduction activities in Gaza province as part of the Disability Awareness and Development Programme (DADP).
Disabled children are consigned to a life of poverty and social discrimination if they miss their chance to gain a basic education. In India, the Education and Livelihood Opportunities (ELO) programme for inclusive education is being driven by Self Help Groups (SHGs) in 70 villages. ELO grew from the experiences of an urban CBR programme, Makkala Bhavishya which supported the education of disabled and otherwise excluded children through local advocacy and parental involvement via SHGs. Group members monitor the quality of their children’s education and create better livelihood opportunities to support their children’s continuing education.
Training opportunities for disabled people are very limited, but our Partners Training programme encourages applications from disabled trainees, while the Jaipur Foot Production Unit and RAWWD provide job opportunities for disabled women in Bangalore. In Andra Pradesh, the Milita project with the Timbaktu Collective is forming disabled people’s SHGs to support livelihood and advocacy work.
DDP has also made a major contribution to the WHO Disability and Rehabilitation Unit project to update and rewrite CBR Guidelines. DDP has been involved in all aspects of this collaboration but made a special input on livelihoods. |
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