Resources search

Barriers Faced by Young Adults with Disabilities in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Report of a Community-Based Emancipatory Disability Research (CB-EDR)

Sunil Deepak
February 2020

Expand view

An Emancipatory Disability Research in Mongolia was carried out as part of a project aimed at promoting independent living among young adults with disabilities living in the national capital Ulaanbaatar (UB). It was focused on young adults with disabilities living in the 9 districts of UB and was seen as a part of the process which provides information and skills to persons for independent living. It was based on the social model of disability - it looked at the different ways in which the society creates disabling barriers which block or make difficult the participation of persons with disabilities in the different domains of life. The idea of conducting the emancipatory research came from an interaction between some Mongolian DPOs and Tegsh Niigem, a Mongolian NGO active in the areas of rehabilitation, who then asked AIFO-Italy for technical support to conduct it. EDR in Mongolia was implemented through a new approach called a “Community-Based Emancipatory Disability Research” (CB-EDR). A group of young persons with different disabilities were identified as volunteer-researchers by their DPOs, trained and then supported to carry out research in 12 broad areas which they had identified, over a period of 18 months. The researchers, individually or in small groups, carried out research on one theme at a time by collecting information about it from the field. They met periodically to share and discuss the findings of their research and to build a common understanding about the key issues related to the selected theme, and what could they do to overcome the barriers they had identified.

E-bulletin