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Rapid access to essential assistive technology for internally displaced people in Ukraine (‎AT10)‎: lessons learned report

WHO Regional Office for Europe
January 2024

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The “Rapid access to essential assistive technology for internally displaced people in Ukraine (AT10)” project was a WHO initiative, in partnership with the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, that took place in Ukraine starting in 2022, with funding from ATscale and the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund.

Its aim was to establish rapid service delivery mechanisms to provide 10 products that assist mobility and self-care to support the population with existing or new assistive technology needs. A novel aspect of this project was that the provision of assistive technology was integrated in the emergency response. Service providers were trained to provide the 10 products using the WHO Training in Assistive Products programme.

As of 31 March 2023, in the first phase of the project, 2458 assistive products had been provided by 10 health facilities in five oblasts [regions] in eastern Ukraine, meeting the assistive technology needs of 1485 people affected by the war. Through a process that was well coordinated, timely, acceptable to service users and sensitive to the challenges of the local context, the AT10 project met the assistive technology needs of the population and facilitated rehabilitation, community participation and ultimately community development.

This report describes the lessons learned from this project and outlines recommended actions for future provision of assistive technology as part of the health emergency response.

Catalyzing action for millions more people to access assistive technology in LMICs

BIJLEVELD, Pascal
September 2023

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Presented at the Disability Innovation Summit: Inclusive Interactions conference organised by the GDI hub on 13 Sept 2023

 

ATscale has a goal of reaching 500 million more people, mostly in low and middle income countries, with AT by 2030.

This short talk focusses on major fundamential issues found in the first 2 years of operations:

  • Awareness - lack of awareness of AT even amongst health professionals
  • Fragmentation - AT is not a sector and is fragmented in types of AT (vision, hearing, mobility etc), in ministries involved (social welfare, health, education etc), in civil society and in the private sector
  • Expertise - implementation is a challenge. AT needs to be built as a discipline

A disability inclusive response to COVID-19 - four lessons learned about including people with disabilities in humanitarian aid

MORRIS, Lisa
ELLIOTT, Chris
PIERI, Susan
September 2021

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Inclusive Futures played a crucial role in supporting some of the most marginalised people with disabilities in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Tanzania during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper summarises what we learned and it can be used to include people with disabilities in future programming, particularly in contexts at risk of crisis.

Empowering Women with Disabilities : moving from charity to right based model

Humanity & Inclusion
2020

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HI Pakistan has recently completed a UN Women funded project ”Empowering women with disabilities (EWwD)” focusing on the social and economic empowerment of the women with disabilities. The project was implemented at Islamabad capital territory (ICT), Peshawar, Nowshera and Karachi. This project has directly benefited more than 600 women with disabilities , whereas about 30 DPOs and a number of public private departments / institutions have also been engaged and benefitted.

 

HI Pakistan collected the stories of project beneficiaries and published to highlight the impact of the project and to integrate the lesson learnt in program cycle management.

Disability design and innovation in computing research in low resource settings

MORGADO-RAMIREZ, Dafne Zuleima
BARBARESCHI, Giulia
DONOVON-HALL, Maggie Kate
SOBUH, Mohammad
ELLYAN, Nida'
TAKANDI, Brenda T
SSEKITOLEKO, Robert
OLENJA, Joyce
MAGOMERE, Grace Nyachomba
DAYMONDE, Sibylle
HONEYWILL, Jake
HARRIS, Ian
MBUGUA, Nancy
KENNEY, Laurence
HOLLOWAY, Catherine
October 2020

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80% of people with disabilities worldwide live in low resourced settings, rural areas, informal settlements and in multidimensional poverty. ICT4D leverages technological innovations to deliver programs for international development. But very few do so with a focus on and involving people with disabilities in low resource settings. Also, most studies largely focus on publishing the results of the research with a focus on the positive stories and not the learnings and recommendations regarding research processes. In short, researchers rarely examine what was challenging in the process of collaboration. We present reflections from the field across four studies. Our contributions are: (1) an overview of past work in computing with a focus on disability in low resource settings and (2) learnings and recommendations from four collaborative projects in Uganda, Jordan and Kenya over the last two years, that are relevant for future HCI studies in low resource settings with communities with disabilities. We do this through a lens of Disability Interaction and ICT4D.

 

ASSETS '20: Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility; 2020

https://doi.org/10.1145/3373625.3417301

Education for Every Ability. A review and roadmap of disability-inclusive education in East Asia and Pacific

UNICEF EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC
July 2020

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Rapid advances in education provision over the past few decades in East Asia and Pacific has led to considerable progress in integrating out-of-school children and adolescents in basic education. However, children with disabilities continue to face many barriers to accessing and completing quality primary education. While countries increasingly recognize the importance of making education systems more disability inclusive, many challenges remain to realising inclusive education for every child

 

The Education Section of UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) commissioned a review of the progress of countries and UNICEF programmes in the region in advancing inclusive education for children, as part of its continued commitment to enabling equitable access to and participation of all learners in high quality and inclusive education. The mapping has a particular focus on programmes targeted for children with disabilities of pre-primary and primary school age, implemented from 2015 to 2019. 

 

This Report analyzes successes, innovative approaches, challenges, gaps and priorities for action in the region and proposes a roadmap for advancing Inclusive Education in the region

 

Women's Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) Programme for Results: independent verification, evidence, and learning

Monteath-van Dok, Adrienne
Lagaay, Mary
April 2020

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As part of the Department for International Development’s (DFID’s) Women’s Integrated Sexual Reproductive Health (WISH) programme, an evidence gap map (EGM) has been developed to map interventions on ‘what works’ to enable access to sexual reproductive health (SRH) services for persons with disabilities in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). EGMs are a user-friendly presentation of the available, relevant evidence for a particular sector, which is systematically gathered and mapped onto a framework, visually highlighting the gaps or concentration of evidence. This EGM aims to support WISH programming by consolidating evidence and identifying tools/approaches which could be brought into the programme. In addition, it aims to identify where evidence is weak and how the WISH programme can contribute to evidence generation.

This report provides a written accompaniment to the Evidence Gap Map (EGM) to explain the methodology, findings on the availability of evidence, and key recommendations. When scoping for this EGM, it was recognised early on that some of the best practices and interventions on ‘what works’ to support persons with disabilities access SRH services in LMICs are not always empirically tested. Therefore, a decision was made to develop an EGM which includes both peer-reviewed and grey literature. This approach diverges from the norm, as EGMs typically only include peer-reviewed literature.

Learning Paper – Inclusive Sports for Development Project

NEUPANE, Sudarshan
JALAL, Faruk Ahmed
CHAKRABORTY, Ripon
Md. ISLAM, Shafiqul
PAUL, Ashok Kumar
Md. MUHIT, Mubdiul
April 2020

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Children with disabilities in Bangladesh have equal access to play, recreation and leisure, and sporting activities, including in the school system (contributing to enjoyment of article 30 5.d of UNCRPD).

Zero Project Report 2020: Inclusive education. 75 Innovative Practices and 11 Innovative Policies from 54 countries

BUTCHER, Thomas
et al
January 2020

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There are several sections in this report:

  • Executive summary
  • Impact of the Zero Project: Survey results
  • Innovative policies and practices: Factsheets and life stories
  • The Zero Project Impact Transfer accelerator programme
  • An analysis of ICT supporting innovations in inclusive education
  • SDGs, Data and inclusive education
  • Summary of report in Easy Read. 

Themes were:

  • Early childhood and preschool
  • Formal education (primary and secondary education)
  • Universities (tertiary education)
  • Vocational education and training
  • Non-formal education
  • ICT-driven solutions related to education/digital skills

Final evaluation report project for ASEAN hometown improvement through disability-inclusive communities model

MEKONG INSTITUTE (MI)
May 2019

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This report covers the objectives, process, findings and recommendations of final evaluation on APCD Project for ASEAN Hometown Improvement through Disability‐Inclusive Communities Model. The project reached to the end of implementation in its second year and required a final evaluation to assess its achievements and non-achievements in against of its desired objectives from this project. The final evaluation has assessed the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of the project. This report provides analysis of its findings from literature review and field visits during the evaluation and provides country-specific as well as overall recommendations for further implementation of this kind project in future. 

Three Circles Tool - organisational capacity assessment & planning tool

ADD International
April 2019

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This tool has been developed by ADD International for use with partner DPOs, based on existing good practice in the development sector. It was developed with input from MEL staff across the organisation in July 2016, based on ADD’s long experience of organisational capacity building practice with DPOs , and was then piloted with DPOs before being finalised. It replaces the Five Core Capabilities tool which we have previously adapted for use within ADD International’s programmes. The key elements of the Five Core Capabilities tool have here been incorporated into a simpler model with three main categories – the three circles – and includes a system for identifying progress against specific plans within each capacity area by exploring a total of 23 different aspects of capacity within these three broad areas. The three circles tool supports organisational capacity building in the following ways:

  • To support discussion and learning within partner DPOs on the key aspects of organisational capacity,
  • To analyse gaps and weaknesses in organisational capacity, and to identify and prioritise practical action needed to address these,
  • To identify specific organisational capacity building support needed from ADD/other sources to address the issues raised,
  • To track progress on strengthening organisational capacity over time.

The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the UK government or members of the Inclusion Works consortium.

Global survey of inclusive early childhood development and early childhood intervention programs

VARGAS-BARON, Emily
et al
March 2019

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To learn more about the current status of IECD (inclusive early childhood development) and ECI (early childhood intervention) programs, three international organizations collaborated to conduct a global survey: RISE Institute; UNICEF; and the Early Childhood Development Task Force (ECDtf), which is within the Global Partnership on Children with Disabilities (GPcwd). This large survey was designed in 2016, was conducted in 2017, and the report was prepared in 2018.

 

The main objectives of the survey were to:

  • Map current implementation of IECD and ECI programs and related activities;
  • Describe key IECD and ECI program features;
  • Identify gaps and challenges in providing accessible IECD and ECI services;
  • Document factors associated with successful implementation and scale-up;
  • Generate recommendations to inform future policy and program development and national planning and implementation efforts.

 

The online survey targeted a range of programs, and activities including IECD and ECI services; rehabilitation and habilitation services; humanitarian, emergency, and child Global Survey of Inclusive ECD and ECI Programs 8 protection services; advocacy campaigns; and research and evaluation projects. 

 

Program respondents provided information on 426 programs that were implemented in 121 countries. 

Learning From Experience: Guidelines for locally sourced and cost-effective strategies for hygiene at home for people with high support needs.

World Vision/CBM Australia
May 2018

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This learning resource is the result of a partnership between World Vision Australia and CBM Australia that aims to improve inclusion of people with disabilities in World Vision’s Water, Hygiene and Sanitation (WASH) initiatives, including in Sri Lanka. The guidelines are based on experiences and observations from World Vision’s implementation of the Rural Integrated WASH 3 (RIWASH 3) project in Jaffna District, Northern Province, funded by the Australian Government’s Civil Society WASH Fund 2. The four year project commenced in 2014. It aimed to improve the ability of WASH actors to sustain services, increase adoption of improved hygiene practices, and increase equitable use of water and sanitation facilities of target communities within 11 Grama Niladari Divisions (GNDs) in Jaffna District.

To support disability inclusion within the project, World Vision partnered with CBM Australia. CBM Australia has focused on building capacities of partners for disability
inclusion, fostering connections with local Disabled People’s Organisations, and providing technical guidance on disability inclusion within planned activities. World Vision also partnered with the Northern Province Consortium of the Organizations for the Differently Abled (NPCODA) for disability assessment, technical support and capacity building on inclusion of people with disabilities in the project.

HYGIENE AT HOME FOR PEOPLE WITH HIGH SUPPORT NEEDS
This document is one of two developed in the Jaffna District and describes strategies that used to assist households and individuals in hygiene tasks at home. The strategies were designed to be low cost and were developed using locally available materials and skills in the Jaffna District of Sri Lanka.

NOTE: The development of this learning resource was funded by the Australian Government's Civil Society WASH Fund 2.

Developing inclusive practices through action learning: Inclusive education cross-country peer-review of Bangladesh (Hope project) and Indonesia (IDEAL project)

GRIMES, Peter
HEIJNEN-MAATHUIS, Els
April 2018

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The aim of the review was to create a capacity building and professional learning opportunity based on inclusive education experience and expertise in another context. The background, methodology, findings of the study are enclosed within the document. Specific objectives include: (1) to create focused peer-to-peer sharing and learning opportunities across countries, (2) record key strategies, opportunities, remaining challenges and achievements, (3) document lessons learned for targeted quality improvements during the last year of each project, and (4) use information collected for developing a responsible, phased exit strategy for 2018.

Services for people with communication disabilities in Uganda: supporting a new speech and language therapy professional

MARSHALL, Julie
WICKENDEN, Mary
2018

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Services for people with communication disability (PWCD), including speech and language therapists (SLTs), are scarce in countries of the global South. A SLT degree programme was established at Makerere University, Uganda, in 2008. In 2011, an innovative project was set up to provide in-service training and mentoring for graduates and staff of the programme. This paper describes the project and its evaluation over three years. Three types of input: direct training, face-to-face individual and group meetings, and remote mentoring, were provided to 26 participants and evaluated using written and verbal methods. The first two types of input were evaluated mainly positively, while remote mentoring received more mixed evaluations. Less positive evaluations were linked to factors including resourcing, cultural perceptions about professional roles and services, work patterns, power/status, engagement, perceptions of help-seeking, community recognition of the needs for services for PWCD. Findings suggest that participatory approaches, flexibility, reflexivity and open discussion with participants around support and work challenges, are important. Power gradients between white Northern ‘experts’ and relatively inexperienced East African SLTs, contributed to some challenges. Structural issues about degree programme structures and statutory bodies, provide lessons about the development of new services and professions in low-income settings. 

 

Disability and the Global South, 2018 Vol.5, No. 1

The 2015 Nepal earthquake(s): Lessons learned from the disability and rehabilitation sector's preparation for, and response to, natural disasters

LANDRY, Michel
SHEPHARD, Phillip
LEUNG, Kit
RETIS, Chiara
SALVADOR, Edwin
RAMAN, Sudha
November 2016

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This article outlines lessons learned from 2015 Nepal earthquake that can be applied to future disasters to reduce overall disability-related outcomes and more fully integrate rehabilitation in preparation and planning. Information is presented on disasters in general, and then specficially on the earthquake(s) in Nepal. Field experience in Nepal before, during, and after the earthquake is described, and actions that can and should be adopted prior to disasters as part of disability preparedness planning are examined. Emerging roles of rehabilitation providers such as physical therapists during the immediate and postdisaster recovery phases are discussed. Finally, approaches are suggested that can be adopted to “build back better” for, and with, people with disabilities in postdisaster settings such as Nepal.

 

Physical Therapy, Volume 96, Issue 11, 1 November 2016, Pages 1714–1723

https://doi.org/10.2522/ptj.20150677

 

OPERA framework

July 2016

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"A guiding lens for CESR's national enforcement work, the OPERA framework allows an assessment that triangulates outcomes, policies and resources to provide a much fuller picture of what a state is doing to promote the realization of specific rights. Importantly, it traces economic and social deprivations and disparities back to the actions or omissions of the state, to make the case that they constitute an injustice and a violation of human rights."

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