In Cambodia, women and girls with disability face multiple, compounding challenges. Work is being carried out to strengthen the capacity of groups of people with disability - self-help groups and Disabled People’s Organisations - to prevent violence and identify and refer survivors of violence to appropriate services - including legal services, counselling, health care, and physical and emotional rehabilitation services. The intervention has completed its first year, and this is a learning paper of key observations. It is too early to consider these reflections as indications of patterns to replicate
The aim of 'Voices of the Marginalised' is to bring the perspectives of those who live in poverty or who are highly marginalised, including those with disabilities, older people and people living with mental health problems, into post-2015 policymaking. Focusing on Bangladesh and Tanzania, people with disabilities and older people were asked to become researchers themselves, and were trained to collect and analyse stories from peers in rural and urban areas.
Disabled people are often among the poorest and most marginalised people in communities. Many development organisations state that their intention is to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged and yet don’t actively include disabled people in their work. Given the huge but largely unrecognised potential contribution of 1 billion disabled people towards economic and social progress, it makes good sense for development organisations to actively engage them. Disabled people have a right to participate in and benefit from development, and their inclusion will help reduce the inequalities that are slowing down progress on the elimination of extreme poverty.