Transcript Youth with Disabilities Ramping the Road Map of the

Youth with Disabilities
Ramping the Road Map
of the Middle East
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Identifying the challenges that
impede the implementation of
developing services and promoting
economic development for people
with disabilities
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Lessons learned by Mercy Corps
Intellectual Property Rights of Karen Saba
Overview
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For Mercy Corps, there are three challenges
that impede the implementation of service
programs promoting the productivity of
people with disabilities.
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The Middle Eastern Environment itself including local attitudes, social beliefs and national
political will
Diverse economic systems within the region
The methodology of donors and foreign aid in
funding disability program
1. The Middle East Environment
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Local attitudes and political will limit the
potential for self-determination of YWDs.
Individuals with disabilities lack the knowledge
or support to create effective services for
themselves and their community.
2. Diverse Economic Systems
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Most qualified PWD service providers with the
capacity to empower those with disabilities end
up working in the Gulf countries, although most
are trained in Egypt and Jordan.
In the Gulf, disability services are totally
privatized.
2. Diverse Economic Systems
Slide 2
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The relationship between national and percapita income and disability rights may be
interesting to explore.
While disability service providers and heath
care professionals in the Middle East usually
have good theoretical knowledge, they lack
practical experience, and often exhibit
condescending attitudes toward those with
disabilities.
3.The Historic Trends of funding
Disability Programming
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Historically, international development efforts have focused
on distribution of durable medical supplies (wheelchairs,
etc) and centralizing the medical services into specific
location.
Efforts have focused on rehabilitation of PWDs (fixing
their bodies) rather than putting the Social Safety- Nets to
make them productive members of society.
This approach has contributed to the historical trend of
institutionalizing those with disabilities,
It has created assumptions that service providers should
control and dictate the services provided to PWDs.
Mercy Corps
Middle East Disability Program
Had two tracks
 Direct capacity training to
YWD –through peer
empowerment training
 Integrating YWD in most
programs.
 Main GoalDecentralization of
services.
Direct Capacity Training
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In Iraq, through small grants, the PWDs
implemented the following projects
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Small home infrastructure modification Remodeling
restrooms and ramping houses
The DPO did the assessment and the bidding and
oversaw the entire project
 Imagine how empowering it is for a youth to use a
restroom independently !
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DPO implemented an education project to teach
those with severe disabilities
 DPOs did an awareness campaign on bedsores
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Employment of PWDs
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It is not easy to hire qualified PWDs.
The Education System in MENA excludes PWD. Or is
not accommodating
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In order to even begin to talk about Employment of YWDs,
you have to address this practice.
Having policy is not good enough. MENA needs to develop
program in this area.
Employment of PWD slide 2
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Mercy Corps- has made it a commitment to hire PWDs
in the region.
3 out of the 5 country offices have PWDs working full
time.
The argument of not finding qualified PWDs to work
in the field is an excuse!
The 3 offices that hired PWDs did it because there was
a Commitment by the Country Director to do so.
The Value in Hiring YWDs
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In order to Fund programs for YWDs, you have
to get to know our issues and feel comfortable
with our culture.
Hiring local PWDs can help you break those
cultural barriers.
This will create stronger sustainable disability
programs; and help create a culture of diversity
that is needed in the Middle East.
Mainstreaming Projects
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Conflict and Medication training- Leaders that
included PWD.
As a result, we found out that a lot of elected official
had PWD family members.
 People became more willing to talk about PWD
issues.
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The disability community is very diverse there is
a lot of internal feud among the different
disability groups, they should be included in
such training.
Connectivity
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All our internet café’s are physically accessible.
In Lebanon this became a hanging out for
YWDs.
In Syria, we allocated some travel funds so we
can assist pwd to come to training held in these
computer centers.
In Iraq- We used these centers to teach parents
of the deaf sign language.
Infrastructure
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Our engineers in Iraq have been trained on the
ADAAG because there is plenty of technical
information on the internet on this Code.
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PWDs were paid to evaluate the Accessibility
standards during construction projects.
In Jordan, I found a capable disabled Architect
Designer that I would have liked to use for our
Accessibility Education project.
Distribution of NFI
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Keep in mind that most YWDs live in isolation.
We went to their home and did individual
assessment using ILP.
Recommendations and Conclusions
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Promote Inclusion by having PWD input at all levels of
program development
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by making sure that funding is going to YWDs, not just for services, but
also for management, logistics, staffing, etc.
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HIRE PWDs; and work with your partners to help them adhere
to the local Employment Quotas.
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Its especially crucial to establish personal rapport directly with
individuals with disabilities. Not just government run
organizations.
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Learn about the Micro Economic Politics of Disability in MENA
Recommendations and Conclusions
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Grants to fund disability programs, should be
quantify by the number of services provided not
by the # of individuals being served.
Serves should focus on individual needs and not on
any centralized service providers to avoid
institutionalization.
Fund Safety-net programs to integrate PWDs in
mainstream development projects.
Use your economic power to and try to change
Local Attitudes!
Use your economic power to let the
Attitudinal Wall Barrier
come tumble down!
THANK YOU.