Engaging with the Disabled Community Brecon Molo Community Partnership - Working with Disabled People and their Organisations Engaging with the Disabled Community

Background and Introduction Brecon, in central Wales, has been Linked with Molo, in Kenya, since 2007 Disability has been part of Brecon Molo Community Partnership from the start Training in Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR ) (2009&11) used south to south Link with Embu Since CBR training, activities tended to focus on developing services, such as Exchange of service providers, particularly health Developing low-tech equipment, e.g. APT However, there was a lack of involvement of disabled people and their families

Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), along with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), respectively promote a right based approach to disability work and the mainstream inclusion of disabled people within development work Community development, for disabled people, is more than just providing localised services Disabled people and their families need self-advocacy and mutual support DPOs are often well placed to access their local disabled communities, understand their needs, and mobilise disabled people and their families Whilst DPOs are often small and may have low capacity, with support, they can be effective in achieving social change

Empowering the Disabled Community April 2016 the idea of a Disabled Community Trainer initiative was discussed and agreed with people in Molo, including a disabled activist October 2016 BMCP hosted an open afternoon to recruit volunteer into its disability group in Brecon February 2017 - 5 people from Brecon, 3 of whom were disabled, and two of whom were close family members, travelled to Molo Ran 2 courses, with assistance of Molo Red Cross Getting to Know Cerebral Palsy (parents & CHWs) Disability Community Trainers (disabled people) Both courses designed to train grass roots activists to cascade information throughout parents’ groups and DPOs

Disabled Community Trainers - Aims To empower a small group of disabled people to talk about disability issues in their communities To recruit participants connected with DPOs To start a process of empowering disabled people to advocate their self-defined needs, working through a DPO structure To provide a mechanism through which disabled people from Brecon and Molo could start working together.

What the participants brought to the Training Participants eager to support other members of their DPOs, e.g. One member came with a list of children who needed equipment and support A very strong focus on how to generate income both for individuals and their DPOs Some understanding of what services and support were available but lack of confidence to challenge A very localised, and disconnected, perspective

How the training was implemented Worked alongside a disabled Kenyan facilitator who had many years experience of being a member of, and of working with, DPOs Swahili main language, using interpreters (appropriate language important, when working at grass roots level) Participants encouraged to explore what they saw as the key issues – could be different from our expectations Agenda altered as we learned what participants priorities were

Outcomes and Achievements Enabled people to talk about their disabilities in a positive way People discussed barriers they had to gaining effective services and how to overcome them Participants came together to form a group to support each other Participants undertook to share their learning with their local disabled communities

Reflections To Date Important to encourage and nurture disabled people involvement at the Brecon end The Molo Red Cross helped in the recruitment of the initial group of Disability Community Trainers. However future we need to liaise with this group directly. South to south connections of disabled people needed to support the efforts of the Brecon Molo Link

The Future Having now developed relationships with disabled individuals and, through them, having direct contacts with DPOs, we need to build on this by agreeing with them how we can work to respond to their needs Increasing the awareness of what DPOs, and disabled people, are doing in other parts of Kenya, and beyond, and encouraging them to link up with each other Sharing ideas and experiences between disabled people in Brecon and Molo