Inclusion in action: 12 people who inspire us

taonere

Taonere, from Malawi, has had a long road to reach the Paralympics. She was supposed to compete in London in 2012 but a lack of funding forced the team to pull out. Disappointed but undaunted, the 20-year-old runner (who has low vision) kept training, and her hard work paid off this year, when she became Malawi’s only athlete to attend the 2016 Paralympics in Rio!

florence

Florence, who lives in Uganda, joined a Sightsavers and EU funded training programme called Connecting the dots, and has since set up her own business sewing clothes and selling snacks. She’s also a member of a savings and loan group that helps its members expand their businesses. Florence’s community previously thought people with disabilities weren’t capable of earning a living, but she’s proved them wrong and now supplies clothes to many of them! She also supports her family financially and is a youth community leader.

anuradha

Anuradha was just one year old when she fell into a fire, badly burning her hands and face. Growing up, she felt ugly and unconfident because of her disability, but an ad she saw by chance in a newspaper changed everything - she found out about an organisation run by and for people with disabilities. The group supported her to claim her rights and entitlements to things like transport benefits, and she was inspired to help other people with disabilities become empowered. Since then Anuradha’s gone from strength to strength and she’s now a local council representative.

sylvia

Sylvia had a very tough time after losing her sight, which led to her losing custody of her two children. She felt worthless and useless until joining the Connecting the dots training programme in Masindi, Uganda, but becoming a student enabled her to gain training and an internship. Sylvia’s now earning an income from her knitting, and mentoring other students. She’s grown hugely in confidence and is a public role model for others with disabilities in her community.

“People like me,” Sylvia says, “who have been empowered, effectively become the voice for the disabled people who are marginalised and victimised. Just because I can’t walk, or see, or hear, doesn’t make me any less of a human being.”

paul

Paul’s a teacher working in an inclusive school in Sierra Leone. He’s blind himself, and has had training to support the school’s visually impaired students to learn using braille. He knows from experience how inclusive education can make all the difference to young people with disabilities. “It removes the stigma; other children get to learn how to work with visually impaired people, and they come to learn it’s normal. They learn how not to discriminate.”

jenneh

We first met Jenneh in Sierra Leone in 2014, when she was 13 years old. She was already thriving in school, and had learned to read and write braille and navigate around her school by herself. She wanted to be a teacher one day.

We caught up with Jenneh again in early 2016 and were delighted to see that she’s still doing brilliantly! Although she has some frustrations at school (progressing in mathematics is difficult as there aren’t braille resources available for the subject), her goal of becoming a teacher hasn’t changed. “Teaching is very important,” she says, “because it makes you know more about your community. I want to teach social studies and home economics. I’ll need to go to University.”

atugonza

Atugonza, who has a physical disability affecting his leg, studied IT skills after joining an employment training programme and is now an office intern and youth disability advocate. He wants to be a leader in his community: “My mission,” he says, “is empowering youth with disabilities to get self-worth, to see that they can also earn a living, to lobby for them to know their rights and benefits.”

godfrey

A trained mechanic, Godfrey runs a workshop that takes on young people with disabilities as apprentices. He’s the district supervisor for people with disabilities in Kiryandongo, Uganda, and works with volunteers to reach and support young people in the community who would otherwise remain hidden and unemployed.

He says: “We have to work together. We have to change the negative attitudes. People with disabilities have to have self-esteem, to say ‘yes we can’ and the community has to change to believe disability is not inability. We have the potential, we can compete, we can serve and play a part in the development of the nation.”

mbathio

“Sometimes people at school can be mean, but the other children are usually very kind to us,” says Mbathio. A shy, quiet girl, she is fiercely bright and excels at maths at her inclusive school in Sierra Leone. She is neat, tidy and methodical, and uses a Braille board and box of pins to do her lessons. Before she was able to attend the school she would spend her time at home, but now she has career aspirations and would one day like to work in an office.

mirriam

Mirriam’s an amazing woman. She’s had a lot to cope with - her son Blessings, who has severe disabilities after a bout of cerebral malaria, was badly injured in a fire several years ago, and she slept under his hospital bed every night for six months. To support Blessings and other children with disabilities in and around her village in Malawi, Mirriam donated some of her own land and applied for grants to help set up the Dawn Centre, a residential school for children with disabilities to receive education and physical therapy. As if that wasn’t enough, she also visits 77 young people in the area to give physical therapy if they’re unable to make it to the Centre, and she even supplies their families with food and other basics when they’re struggling to get by.

sankarlal

Sankarlal’s sight began to deteriorate in his early teens, as a result of cataracts in both eyes. By the time he was 14 he was completely blind, and treatment to fix the problem was unsuccessful. “In the first couple of years,” he says, “it was difficult to manage daily life, but after that I accepted I would not see again and I adjusted.”

Sankarlal joined a disabled people’s organisation (DPO) in his village in India, and was supported to access a business loan. He started with a mobile shop on a bicycle, then he got a building by the house. Initially it was just a small shop selling soap and chocolate but with the loan he was able to expand and buy more goods. He’s proud to have shown people that disability doesn’t mean a job and income is out of reach.