Able Child Africa Trustee Visit

Geoffrey,Judy and Joshua

Action Network for the Disabled (ANDY) was honoured to receive a visitor from our UK-based partners, Able Child Africa, yesterday. Our guest was Judy Oder, a trustee of the charity which advocates for and supports disabled children and young people in Africa. 

ANDY is one of only five partner organisations Able Child Africa supports to carry out work which is genuinely life-changing for children and young people with disabilities. Able Child Africa uses our experiences and learning to campaign for more widespread change in attitudes and practice.

We had a very positive conversation with Judy, who is a lawyer working for Interights in London, about our human rights and advocacy programme. We were also able to discuss the very successful programmes which our partnership with Able Child Africa has helped to develop in two key areas; helping young people with disabilities to achieve economic empowerment through employment, and access to regular, high quality sports and recreation.

All our programmes are led by and fully involve young people with disabilities, providing real empowerment and helping them to take control of their own lives.

The sports programme has given over 100 young people with a full range of disabilities the chance to show their talents and participate in social and healthy activities with other people with disabilities.

We trained eight coaches from ANDY’s beneficiaries to provide training for others in wheelchair basketball, volleyball for the deaf, swimming and table tennis.  The programme has had a major impact, providing new opportunities to 100 young people with disabilities and helping to raise their self-esteem, social skills and transform their overall health and fitness. 

Thanks to the Access to Work project, around 30 young people with disabilities have now secured permanent jobs or gained valuable experience through an internship.

Again, the project was delivered by young people with disabilities for young people with disabilities. They were trained to provide 60 others with one-month training on life skills, entrepreneurship and computers. The group were given support to write CV`s, do job searches and applications. We also provided a basic computer training programme and ran job clinics; including job seeking skills, interview skills, and communication and employee legal rights.

Developing young people with disabilities for the world of work is the easy part; they are like every other young person in the world. Give them the encouragement, education and training that they often cannot access and their talent will flourish.

The harder part is working with employers to convince them that young people with disabilities can do the job as well as anyone else. We have had great successes meeting employers from across the public, private and charity sectors. We know have people with a range of disabilities working in jobs as varied as Graphic Design Assistant, French Teacher, Radio Presenter and Advocacy and Networking Assistant.

The organisations which supported our project and gained all the benefits of hard-working and skilled young people with disabilities (including some of the tax benefits available) deserve a mention. They are Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE), Community Eye Services Organization (CESO), Kilimani Primary School, Kencall EPZ Limited, Technology Today, Ministry of Youth Affairs, Global Deaf Connection (GDC), Coast General Hospital, Mombasa, Ministry of Transport & Communications, Mbaga Mixed Secondary school, Siaya, Masinde Muliro University of Science & Tech, Pamoja FM radio station, Ministry of Livestock Development and Kenya Society for the Blind.

One thing we discussed with Judy is the increasing pressure on funds caused by the global recession. We need to find more donors, sponsors and raise funds in more innovative and creative ways if we are to give more young people with disabilities the chance to benefit from our programmes. That’s why ANDY’s Executive Director Fredrick Ouko has just climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, despite losing the use of both legs to polio in his childhood. Support him by clicking here.

Competition for funds will increase over time and some successful programmes may fail under the pressure. Our challenge is to make sure that young people with disabilities have a voice in the development movement and are still able to benefit from programmes which help them overcome all the barriers - poverty, accessibility issues, lack of opportunities and cultural stigmas - and take control of their own lives and achieve their potential.

We are delighted that some of Judy’s colleagues will be visiting this weekend to meet some of our beneficiaries and see for themselves the very real difference our partnership with Able Child Africa is making to their lives.

Gareth Wilce

Partnerships and communications adviser

Action Network for the Disabled