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Disability and Refugees -The Example of Nepal
From reports by Gauri Giri, summarised by Sue Stubbs, June 1997
Notes on an example of good practice in relation to including disabled people in a refugee programme.
The Jhapa Refugee programme is a good example of addressing disability within a refugee context. The following is a summary of the history and key components of the project which contribute towards its quality, impact and sustainability.
- disabled people were identified from a health review (1994) as part of a particularly vulnerable group whose needs were not being met.
- an inter-agency meeting (1995) established a working group of agencies involved in the social sector to develop a collaborative approach to responding to the needs of disabled people.
- from the start, the approach was collaborative and aimed to be sustainable, integrated within the community, and promoting self-reliance not dependency.
- Save the Children Fund (SCF) (UK) agreed to implement a pilot project. This began with a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) to expose staff to issues and identify a future course of action; participatory approaches and an action-research approach was used from the start.
- the FGD was carried out with disabled children, their parents and SCF staff. The team focused on children with physical, sensory and speech impairments, so making an effort to look at different types of disability.
- the results of the FGD gave the team information about attitudes, impact on the work-load and lifestyle of mothers; the children spoke about how they helped their parents, but were withdrawn about going outside because they got teased.
- education was a unanimous priority for both parents and children. Parents were over-protective and the children were not getting opportunities for play and interaction.
- SCF allocated a full-time member of staff (who was not previously a disability specialist) recognising that this was important to support the project. This staff member had a strong community development perspective and so was keen not to increase dependency providing 'special' programmes
- the pilot programme as a result of the FGD focused on home visiting support, referral, integration of children into schools, and orientation for staff and the community.
Home visiting systems varied from camp to camp, some were neighbours, others were teachers and women volunteers. It was felt that the neighbour-to-neighbour support worked best.
- the action-research approach continued to be used in order to develop an appropriate and effective programme. The pilot programme was evaluated after six months. The evaluation highlighted good social integration, good parent support, good inter-agency collaboration and active community participation. But there was a need for more information about helping communication problems; more work on helping parents be involved in planning rather than just implementing, more awareness-raising in the community.
- the programme continues to research and address the issue of attitudes in the community using multi-media activities; drama, song, story, visual aids.
- over 700 children have been integrated into mainstream schools, and a pilot integrated pre-school is operating.
- low-cost aids and toys are being produced.
- sign-language training has been conducted in all camps and both hearing and deaf children are actively signing.
- other issues being addressed are; vocational training opportunities for older children, production of awareness-raising materials, more training for health workers and teachers, day care for children with severe disability.
- maximum use has been made of national and international resources and contacts; visits have been exchanged from other disability programmes, trainers have visited, resource persons have given input.
To summarise, this programme is an excellent model of approach to integrating disability with the following criteria of success;
- participatory, action-research approach used from the start including gaining perspectives from consumers; disabled children and parents.
- focusing on integration by targeting activities and resources at removing the barriers to participation; negative attitudes, over-protectiveness, awareness levels in the community etc..
- ensuring sustainability from the start through supporting and involving parents and promoting self-help and self-reliance; it would be easier and quicker to establish a 'service' without parent/community involvement, but would just increase passivity and would not provide any useful skills/ownership for the future.
- balancing practical and visible models with more general advocacy and influence at policy level; e.g. the integrated pre-school met with a lot of resistance from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, but the model is very successful, and the aim is to promote it in other camps.
- not focusing on disability as the problem of the individual child, but seeing disability in a broader development and rights context.
- particular examples of pioneering activities such as sign-language training, respecting the mother tongue of deaf children, and developing an appropriate model to improve communication.
- good management and support at all levels, and good choice of full-time coordinator; a disability specialist is not as important as a person with a good understanding of the community and how to involve them.
Further reading
Giri, Gauri (April 1995) 'Focus Group Discussion - Special Needs' Jhapa, Nepal, Save the Children.
SNSC (December 1995) 'Pilot Project for Children with Special Need; Evaluation Report' Jhapa, Nepal: Save the Children.
SNSC (December 1995) 'Annual Report; Children with Special Needs' Jhapa, Nepal: Save the Children
SCF (June 1996) 'Special Needs Programme, Six monthly Report' Jhapa, Nepal: Save the Children.
Giri, Gauri (November 1996) 'Briefing Notes on Special Needs Programme' Jhapa, Nepal: Save the Children.
Stubbs, S (1995) 'Draft Notes on Disabled Refugees' Policy Unit, Save the Children
Sue Stubbs
Reference:
Link: http://www.eenet.org.uk/resources/docs/refugee.php
