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A university’s response to people with disabilities in Worcester, Western Cape

MÜLLER, Jana V.
NED, Lieketseng
BOSHOFF, Hananja
October 2019

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Background: The call for institutions of higher education to foster interaction with communities and ensure training is responsive to the needs of communities is well documented. In 2011, Stellenbosch University collaborated with the Worcester community to identify the needs of people with disabilities within the community. How the university was engaging with these identified needs through student training still needed to be determined.

 

Objectives: This study describes the engagement process of reciprocity and responsivity in aligning needs identified by persons with disability to four undergraduate allied health student training programmes in Worcester, Western Cape.

 

Method: A single case study using the participatory action research appraisal methods explored how undergraduate student service learning was responding to 21 needs previously identified in 2011 alongside persons with disability allowing for comprehensive feedback and a collaborative and coordinated response.

 

Results: Students’ service learning activities addressed 14 of the 21 needs. Further collaborative dialogue resulted in re-grouping the needs into six themes accompanied by a planned collaborative response by both community and student learning to address all 21 needs previously identified.

 

Conclusion: Undergraduate students’ service learning in communities has the potential to meet community identified needs especially when participatory action research strategies are implemented. Reciprocity exists when university and community co-engage to construct, reflect and adjust responsive service learning. This has the potential to create a collaborative environment and process in which trust, accountability, inclusion and communication is possible between the university and the community.

 

 

African Journal of Disability, Vol 8, 2019

‘We only got Coca-Cola’: Disability and the paradox of (dis)empowerment in Southeast Nigeria

NWOKORIE, Okechukwu V.
DEVLIEGER, Patrick J.
2019

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Background: Empowerment is the generic name for support services for persons with disability in Nigeria. In it, the elites of the society play leading roles. Special events such as anniversaries, Christmas seasons, wealthy people’s birthdays, investiture of new titles and campaigns before general elections often provide occasions for empowerment programmes.

 

Objectives: This article explores discourses of empowerment of persons with disability in Southeast Nigeria. We concentrate on the relation between local elites and the disability community and how it impacts our understanding of empowerment. Conceptualising empowerment as worldmaking, and disability as something that is ambiguous, we challenge the assumption that the aim of empowerment of disabled people is to improve their (disabled people’s) quality of life.

 

Method: This article relies on research data (collected between January 2014 and January 2017) comprising 72 interviews and participant observations from 27 persons with disability, and 13 social workers and senior government officials.

 

Results: We conclude that discourses of empowerment of disabled people frame disability as loss and tend to conceal the personal stories and survival operations of disabled people.

 

Conclusion: Empowerment discourses ironically provide the platform for local power elites to ‘ride’ to fame on the backs of disabled to extend their influence in society. In the current neoliberal environment of unequal access to opportunities, disabled people must ‘play along’ as a survival strategy. Our qualitative data provide opportunities to reflect on the tensions between the ‘local and the global’, thus indicating how disability issues intersect with other wider questions.

 

 

African Journal of Disability, Vol 8, 2019

Analysing disability policy in Namibia: An occupational justice perspective

CHICHAYA, Tongai F.
JOUBERT, Robin W.E.
MCCOLL, Mary Ann
2018

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Background: The Namibian disability policy of 1997 has not been reviewed for about 20 years, which has raised concerns with persons with disabilities and stakeholders in the fields of disability and rehabilitation. In March 2017, the government publicised its intention to review the policy. Thus, this study’s purpose was to generate evidence that can contribute to the development of a more current disability policy that will promote occupational justice.

 

Objectives: The aim of the study was to develop an alternative disability policy option for Namibia and to present outcomes and trade-offs using a policy analysis approach while applying the occupational justice framework to gather evidence.

 

Method: A qualitative research design and Bardach’s eightfold path approach to policy analysis were used. Critical disability theory provided the theoretical framework. The occupational justice framework was the conceptual framework for the study. Evidence from preceding phases of this study and appropriate literature was utilised to construct possible disability policy alternatives in Namibia, set evaluative criteria, project outcomes and confront trade-offs.

 

Results: Three main disability policy alternatives emerged: access policy, support policy and universal coverage policy. Access policy had the fewest trade-offs, and the support policy had the most trade-offs in the Namibian context. Access policy was projected to foster occupational participation among persons with disabilities.

 

Conclusion: Results have implications for selecting disability policy alternatives that promote occupational participation and justice among persons with disabilities in Namibia. Furthermore, the study has implications for advancing the practice of occupational justice in disability policy formulation.

‘These are not luxuries, it is essential for access to life’: Disability related out-of-pocket costs as a driver of economic vulnerability in South Africa

HANASS-HANCOCK, Jill
NENE, Siphumelele
DEGHAYE, Nicola
PILLAY, Simmi
2017

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Background: With the dawn of the new sustainable development goals, we face not only a world that has seen great successes in alleviating poverty but also a world that has left some groups, such as persons with disabilities, behind. Middle-income countries (MICs) are home to a growing number of persons with disabilities. As these countries strive to achieve the new goals, we have ample opportunity to include persons with disabilities in the emerging poverty alleviation strategies. However, a lack of data and research on the linkages between economic vulnerability and disability in MICs hampers our understanding of the factors increasing economic vulnerability in people with disabilities.


Methods: This article aims to present data related to elements of this vulnerability in one MIC, South Africa. Focusing on out-of-pocket costs, it uses focus group discussions with 73 persons with disabilities and conventional content analysis to describe these costs.


Results: A complex and nuanced picture of disability-driven costs evolved on three different areas: care and support for survival and safety, accessibility of services and participation in community. Costs varied depending on care and support needs, accessibility (physical and financial), availability, and knowledge of services and assistive devices.


Conclusions: The development of poverty alleviation and social protection mechanisms in MICs like South Africa needs to better consider diverse disability-related care and support needs not only to improve access to services such as education and health (National Health Insurance schemes, accessible clinics) but also to increase the effect of disability-specific benefits and employment equity policies.

Exploring structural violence in the context of disability and poverty in Zimbabwe

MUDEREDZI, Jennifer T.
EIDE, Arne H.
BRAATHEN, Stine H.
STRAY-PEDERSEN, Babill
2017

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Background: While it is widely assumed that disability, poverty and health are closely linked, research falls short of fully understanding the link. One approach to analysing the links between disability and poverty is through the concept of structural violence, referring to social structures that contribute to the impoverishment of individuals or communities. These structures can be political, ecological, legal and economic, among others.


Objective: To explore structural violence and how it affects families of children with cerebral palsy among the Tonga ethnic group living in poor rural communities of Binga in Zimbabwe.


Method: This is a longitudinal, qualitative and ethnographic study. Data were collected over a period of eight years from 2005 to 2013. Data collection techniques were in-depth interviews, participant observation and focus group discussions. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 53 informants.


Results: Structural violence was noted through four themes: internal displacement and development, food and politics, water and sanitation, and social services. Poverty was noted in the form of unemployment, lack of education, healthcare, food and shelter. The concept of structural violence inflicted social suffering on the informants. Politics played a major role in activities such as food withdrawal, lack of water, development and allocation of local resources to ‘the people of the city’, leaving the informants struggling with care.

 

Conclusion: Political and economic forces have structured risks and created a situation of extreme human suffering. The capabilities approach brings out the challenges associated with cerebral palsy in the context of development challenges.

Enhancing public sectors’ capacity for inclusive economic participation of disabled youth in rural communities

NED, Lieketseng
LORENZO, Theresa
2016

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Background: The capacity of service providers in the public sector to deliver inclusive services is essential to implement strategies that will allow the full participation of disabled youth in development opportunities in the rural context.

 

Objective: The article sets to describe the capacity of service providers in facilitating participation of disabled youth in economic development opportunities.

 

Method: An instrumental, embedded single case study informed the research design. The sample consisted of five disabled youth, four family members as well as six service providers. Data was gathered through in-depth individual interviews and focus group discussions. Data analysis was done inductively and thematically. In the discussion, the interpretation used organisational capacity elements as a framework.

 

Findings: The theme on service providers indicates their understanding of disability as still a multifaceted and a challenging issue with different orientations to service delivery based on understanding of impairment and disability. There is a dominant focus on impairment and negative attitudes.

 

Discussion: An asset building approach could facilitate awareness of capacities of disabled youth and thus shift negative attitudes to an enabling attitude. The vague strategies for youth and women that are described as inclusive are a misrepresentation of the reality of experiences of disabled youth.

 

Conclusion: An appreciative process of facilitating a holistic understanding of the needs of disabled people is needed to assist service providers to reconceptualise disability within an expansive framework.

Disability, gender, and employment relationships in Africa: The case of Ghana

NAAMI, Augustina
2015

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The exploratory quantitative study sought to develop an understanding about the relationships among disability, gender and employment in Northern Ghana. A total of 110 individuals with disabilities (20–60 years) from various disability groups participated in the study. The results indicate that many persons with disabilities are unemployed, the majority being women. Discrimination is cited as the greatest barrier to the employment of persons with disabilities, particularly women. The majority of persons with disabilities, typically women, live in poverty; given that some are unemployed and those who are employed worked mostly in marginal, seasonal and menial jobs. Persons with disabilities also experience several challenges on the job, including negative perceptions about their capabilities, discrimination and exclusion, irrespective of the employment sector and disability type. Educational interventions such as workshops, documenting and showcasing success stories of persons with disabilities could be helpful to reduce negative perceptions about their capabilities as well as discrimination against them. Government intervention to support persons with disabilities with start-up capital and funding for formal education is also recommended as these two elements were identified respectively as barriers to self-employment and employment in the public/private sectors. Government interventions to create educational opportunities for persons with disabilities are essential given that lower educational attainment affect their employment.

Development process in Africa: Poverty, politics and indigenous knowledge

EIDE, Arne H
KHUPE, Watson
MANNAN, Hasheem
2014

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Background: Persons with disability run the danger of not profiting from the development process due to exclusion from basic services and opportunities. Still, the knowledge base on exclusion mechanisms is relatively weak and there is a danger that important aspects are not addressed as they are hidden behind established understandings that are not critically scrutinised.

 

Objectives: The main purpose of this article was to highlight critical thoughts on prevailing knowledge of the relationship between disability and poverty, the policy base for addressing the rights of persons with disability, and culture as a key component in continued discrimination.

 

Method: This article aimed at integrating three papers on the above topics presented at the 2011 African Network for Evidence-to-Action on Disability (AfriNEAD) Symposium. The researchers have therefore thoroughly examined and questioned the relationship between disability and poverty, the influence of policy on action, and the role of culture in reproducing injustice.

 

Results: The article firstly claims that there are limitations in current data collection practice with regards to analysing the relationship between poverty and disability. Secondly, ambitions regarding inclusion of persons with disability in policy processes as well as in implementation of policies are not necessarily implemented in an optimal way. Thirdly, negative aspects of culture in discrimination and bad treatment of disabled need to be highlighted to balance the discussion on disability and culture.

 

Conclusion: A critical view of prevailing understandings of disability and development is key to producing the knowledge necessary to eradicate poverty amongst persons with disability and other vulnerable groups. Not only do we need research that is actually designed to reveal the mechanisms behind the disability–poverty relationship, we need research that is less tied up with broad political agreements that is not necessarily reflecting the realities at ground level.

Stakeholder consultations on community-based rehabilitation guidelines in Ghana and Uganda

WICKENDEN, Mary
MULLIGAN, Diane
FEFOAME, Gertrude O
KATENDE, Phoebe
2012

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Background: The focus of this paper is the new broadened conceptualisation of community-based rehabilitation (CBR), which promotes the empowerment and inclusion of people with disabilities (PWDs) in diverse ways within their communities. New guidelines for CBR were launched in October 2010 by WHO/ILO/UNESCO/IDDC, and this paper describes part of the process by which these were produced using participatory approaches involving International Non-Government Organisations (INGOs) and local partners. The paper reviews the evolution of CBR and describes how grassroots consultation by INGOs working with key stakeholders in the disability arena can influence policy on disability issues, and reciprocally how policy change can inform organisations’ practice and research activities. This ongoing bidirectional influence is illustrated with data from the participatory consultation process about the new CBR guidelines carried out by Sightsavers in Uganda and Ghana

 

Objectives: To consult with key stakeholders in the disability arena in Uganda and Ghana, in order to gain their opinions and suggestions for improvements to the then draft CBR guidelines, as part of a wider global participatory process of consultation on the document.

 

Methods: The INGO Sightsavers gathered qualitative data through focus group discussions and questionnaires in both countries.

 

Results: The participants’ critiques of the draft guidelines carried out in multiagency participatory processes were analysed thematically and fed back to the CBR guidelines editorial team.

 

Conclusion: The paper concludes that stakeholders in diverse communities can actively contribute to shaping policy and practice through participatory consultations. Local and national government and non-government organisations and other key informants can inform the development of national and international guidelines and policies. This participatory approach can be successfully facilitated by INGOs. In turn, these processes have prompted organisations to adapt their own policies and programmes in order to be more responsive to the local needs and concerns of PWDs.

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