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Towards a ‘mind map’ for evaluative thinking in Community Based Rehabilitation: reflections and learning

WEBER, Joerg
GRECH, Shaun
POLACK, Sarah
2016

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Calls for evaluations in Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), in particular those of a participatory nature have stepped up in recent years. Much of this shifting discourse has emerged in response to the fact that evaluations overall remain scarce. Furthermore, very little is known about the impacts of CBR in practice and if/how it benefits persons with disabilities and their families on the ground. Nevertheless, and despite the calls for participatory approaches, the few existing efforts are too often targeted at creating standardised evaluations frequently at the expense of voice, participation and flexibility. This paper reports on a series of critical workshops held in Jamaica with CBR workers and other stakeholders, the objectives of which included discussions and reflections on emerging issues in localised, locally driven and responsive participatory evaluation frameworks. The findings highlight how participants favoured a flexible, adaptive and iterative approach that was not rigid, structured or per-determined by outsiders. Instead, they favoured an approach that created a safe space for sharing and learning, prioritised their narratives, and that was directly linked to and that fed directly into action on the ground. The paper concludes with the call for critical, engaged and bottom-up approaches that move away from control-oriented approaches in CBR towards more experimental and adaptive problem and process-oriented approaches, that embrace complexity and that are consistently responsive to an ever changing context.

 

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 2

Research principles and research experiences: critical reflection on conducting a PhD dissertation on global health and disability

CLEAVER, Shaun
MAGALHAES, Lilian
BOND, Virginia
POLATAJKO, Helene
NIXON, Stephanie
2016

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This article is a presentation of insights gained through critical reflection on the experience of doctoral dissertation research on disability in Western Zambia. The framework guiding this critical reflection is the Principles for Global Health Research released by the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research (CCGHR) in 2015. These six interrelated principles were developed in order to inform and foster research that better and more explicitly addresses health inequities. The principles are: humility, responsiveness to the causes of inequities, commitment to the future, inclusion, authentic partnering, and shared benefits. Critical reflection on the dissertation fieldwork raises the challenges of fulfilling each of the principles. Additionally, the structural power from a researcher in a position of relative privilege, as well as institutional power through the doctoral researcher’s academic program, was apparent. The exercise of power enabled certain possibilities for action by the researcher and the participants with disabilities while constraining others. The insights generated inform the next steps for this project in Western Zambia and considerations for current and prospective doctoral student researchers.

 

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 2

Tangible First Steps: Inclusion Committees as a Strategy to Create Inclusive Schools in Western Kenya

DAMIANI, Michelle L
ELDER, Brent C
OKONGO, Theophilus O
2016

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This paper provides one example of forming an inclusion committee in Kenya toward the vision of creating inclusive primary school campuses. We suggest the development of inclusion committees as a potential innovative strategy and a critical element of community reform toward disability awareness, and to increase access to primary school education for students with disabilities. The formation of the inclusion committee followed a member-driven process for identifying barriers to educational access for students with disabilities, prioritizing the needs within their local context, determining a plan of action to address these needs within existing community resources, and gaining access to new resources. Recognizing access to equitable education as a universal human right supported by local and international legislation, this paper works within the tensions that exist between Western constructs of education and how they are applied in post-colonial countries in the global South. Our findings suggest that establishing diverse participation among stakeholders led to even more inclusive representation; that inclusion committee actions led to local and national level involvement with the initiative; and that community-driven progress toward inclusive education presented both strengths and challenges in terms of sustainability. Finally, we discuss implications for under-resourced schools, including those in the global North.

 

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 1

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