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The 2030 and Counting pilot project sought to give youth with disabilities a seat at the table on the SDGs – providing them with the tools and confidence they need to become their own agents of change. This report provides an overview of the project, together with learnings and recommendations for the future.

In its pilot year, 2030 and Counting brought together young women and men with disabilities and DPOs from Kenya, the Philippines and Zambia to report on and advocate for their rights through the framework of the SDGs

The project had three consecutive phases: Training, Story gathering (data collection) and Influencing. 

In total, 332 reports were collected between June and September 2018. The highest number of reports were submitted under the theme of Education (44%), followed by Work (33%), and Health (14%). The category of Other, which almost entirely focused on discrimination in daily life, accounted for 8%. 80% of reporters had smartphones, offering the potential to increase the use of this feature in future.
 

This Collection is a joint initiative of the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) and the European Disability Forum (EDF). It features examples from different EU Member States, which to a different extent facilitate the right to live independently in the community.

The examples are divided into four areas, presented in different chapters:

• Legislation and funding: State Funded Peer-Counselling – Estonia; Direct Payments – Ireland.
• Community-based support: Peer-Counselling for women with disabilities – Austria; Supported living for adults with intellectual disabilities – Croatia; Supported Decision-Making – The Czech Republic; Mobile Mental Health Units – Greece; Personal Assistance for People with Complex Disabilities – Sweden .
• Involvement of disabled people: Co-Production in Social Care – United Kingdom; Participation of Organisations of People with Disabilities – Italy
• Self-advocacy: Self-Advocacy of Disabled People – Romania

This is the third issue of European Disability Forum's annual European Human Rights report Series focus on Ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities to equality and non-discrimination in the European Union. The report includes a review of equality frameworks in each EU Member State and a section on multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination. The report aims to inform organisations of persons with disabilities and policymakers of the current state of protection against discrimination based on disability in the European Union and draws recommendations with the goal of reaching inclusive equality for all persons with disabilities. The first chapter provides background information about the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Chapter 2 describes what constitutes discrimination on the grounds of disability and the obligations of States under international human rights law. Chapter 3 focuses on multiple and intersectional discrimination, by examining the effect of the intersection of disability with other grounds of discrimination. Looking at current practice, Chapter 4 describes the state of play at national level, with Chapter 5 looking at the EU level, specifically considering the current gaps in ensuring better protection against discrimination based on disability. Finally, the report draws conclusions and recommendations addressed to the EU and its Member States.  

This Compendium documents the broad range of UNICEF’s social protection interventions in MENA from 2014-2017. 
 

The Compendium includes 20 case studies detailing UNICEF’s contributions in the MENA region across the following five Action Areas

• Evidence and Advocacy (Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Morocco)
• Policies, coordinating and financing (Djibouti, Morocco)
• Cash transfer programming and systems strengthening (Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia)
• Cash plus interventions and social work (Iraq, State of Palestine (highlights children with disabilities), Yemen)
• Social protection in fragile and humanitarian contexts/settings (Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria). The Syrian programme was "Reaching children with complex disabilities through cash transfers and case management"

Articles in this issue include:

Working together to advocate for our children in Trinidad and Tobago

The inclusion of deaf children in Malaysia: parental support and advocacy

Family-mediated intervention to support inclusion in Bulgaria

Creating inclusivity and diversity through a parent support group in Kolkata, India 

The positive impact of family involvement in inclusive education, Tetouan, Morocco

In the 1970s and 1980s, Sāmoan women organizers established Aoga Fiamalamalama and Loto Taumafai, two educational institutions, in the independent state of Sāmoa. This article examines these schools’ support of students labelled as ma’i (sick), specifically those with intellectual and physical disabilities. Through oral histories and archival research, I show the vital role performed by the women organizers in changing the educational system by drawing attention to the exclusion of disabled students. I focus on the collective labor of Sāmoan women and their influence in decolonizing schools. In this regard, the women organizers used Sāmoan concepts of fa’a Sāmoa (culture), fanua (land), and tautua (service) as ways to redefine the commitment of the education system. This is a story about daring to reimagine indigenous disabled bodies and their futures through knowledge systems, theory, and literature.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2019, Vol. 6 No. 1

The 3rd World Disability & Rehabilitation Conference 2018 was held from 12th and 13th November 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. People with disabilities and researchers, practitioners, policy makers, industry experts, university faculty and organizations along with advocates and volunteers working with people with disabilities participated and presented their original and unpublished results of conceptual, constructive, empirical, experimental, experiential or theoretical work through abstract and poster presentation. Total 33 participants presented their abstract and poster throughout this conference. The theme of WDRC 2018 was “Global advocacy and rights of people with disabilities”

Purpose: Disability is a global health and a global development concern. To address both issues, a community-based rehabilitation (CBR) approach is increasingly recommended to meet a spectrum of needs, especially for people with disabilities. It is first necessary to understand the perceptions of local, frontline providers, in order to design effective measures for implementing CBR programmes. This paper aimed to understand the conceptions of Primary Healthcare Providers (PHPs) - serving a sub-urban, socially-vulnerable territory in Brazil - about: 1) disability, 2) rehabilitation, and 3) the possible local implementation of a CBR strategy, including any anticipated barriers.

Method: Cross-sectional, exploratory qualitative research was based on focus groups conducted between 2013 and 2016. It involved a total of 78 PHPs serving the western region of the Ribeirão Preto municipality in São Paulo, Brazil. Data analysis was based on Habermas’ critical hermeneutics approach.

Results: PHPs understood disability mostly within the biomedical paradigm. Similarly, the predominant conception of rehabilitation was focussed on enabling individuals’ capacity, more than their environment. For local CBR implementation, the barriers that were anticipated were: 1) difficulties in managing and running action across sectors, and 2) the broader socio-political environment that hardly empowers civil society and is affected by power differentials.

Conclusion and Implications: While local PHPs identified important CBR implementation barriers which are contextual in nature, the predominant conceptions of disability and rehabilitation (i.e., biomedical, impairments-based) also act as a barrier. Contextual and cognitive barriers must both be addressed when envisioning a local CBR implementation

Assistive technology (AT) is a powerful enabler of participation. The World Health Organization’s Global Collaboration on Assistive Technology (GATE) programme is actively working towards access to assistive technology for all. Developed through collaborative work as a part of the Global Research, Innovation and Education on Assistive Technology (GREAT) Summit, this position paper provides a “state of the science” view of AT users, conceptualized as “People” within the set of GATE strategic “P”s. People are at the core of policy, products, personnel and provision. AT is an interface between the person and the life they would like to lead. People’s preferences, perspectives and goals are fundamental to defining and determining the success of AT. Maximizing the impact of AT in enabling participation requires an individualized and holistic understanding of the value and meaning of AT for the individual, taking a universal model perspective, focusing on the person, in context, and then considering the condition and/or the technology. This paper aims to situate and emphasize people at the centre of AT systems: we highlight personal meanings and perspectives on AT use and consider the role of advocacy, empowerment and co-design in developing and driving AT processes.