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VSO's goals > Disability
VSO has disability programmes in 12 countries in Africa and Asia. Our aim is to support disabled people to participate as equal members of their families, communities, and societies.
Volunteers are supporting local organisations and governments to identify strategies that promote disabled people’s human rights, such as education, employment, and healthcare. We do this in two ways: by supporting disabled people’s organisations to raise awareness of issues that affect disabled people and by working to improve the accessibility and quality of mainstream and special services provided by both the government and by non governmental organisations.
In all the countries where we work disabled people are represented by organisations that lobby for change in government policies. For example, by demanding improvements in the quality of education so that more disabled children get a good education or petitioning for public buildings to be more accessible.
VSO volunteers work with these organisations to improve capacity so they are in a better position to meet the needs of the people they represent. For example, a management volunteer may look at ways to improve the financial or office management systems to make an organisation more efficient, or a publicity adviser may offer guidance on how to run effective campaigns so that more people hear the organisation’s lobbying messages
On issues of accessibility and quality of services, VSO works with government and national NGOs. When we talk about mainstream services, we mean services that target the whole population, such as schools and hospitals. When we talk about specialist services, we refer to those that support disabled people and their specific needs, for example speech and language therapy or teachers with sign language skills.
So, a technical volunteer may work with the Ministry of Education to identify how schools can build ramp access and install disabled toilets so that disabled children in the community can go to school, or a health volunteer will provide training to local colleagues in community based rehabilitation services or physiotherapy techniques.
Additionally, a further 20 strategic plans in our other goal areas have identified disabled people as a major or potential beneficiary of VSO’s work. For example in Indonesia, the Secure Livelihoods strategy focuses on promoting the right of disabled people to employment, in Nepal the Participation and Governance strategy includes support and in Cambodia the education programme focuses on the issue of inclusion.
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