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In early March 2019, heavy rains and floods affected the majority of the districts in southern Malawi. At least 115,000 were affected, with scores of fatalities, injured and missing persons. The situation intensified when Cyclone Idai reached Malawi, increasing the devastation caused by heavy rain weeks earlier. When Cyclone Idai caused the Shire river to reach capacity and flood, the districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje were among the worst affected. The aim of this rapid needs assessment was to inform the design of  HelpAge International’s own humanitarian response to the devastating impact of Cyclone Idai on older people in Malawi. The Malawi Network of Older Persons’ Organisations (MANEPO) and HelpAge International jointly conducted the assessment in Chikwawa and Nsanje districts in March 2019. The report also aims to support organisations operating in the affected areas to develop inclusive programmes and support advocacy for the rights of older people to be upheld in the response. The report contains key findings of the assessment, together with observations and analysis. 

Articles include:

• Editorial: Intersecting Indigeneity, colonialisation and disability
• Yuin, Kamilaroi, Sámi, and Maori people’s reflections on experiences as ‘Indigenous scholars’ in ‘Disability Studies’ and ‘Decolonisation’
• Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology: Practitioners’ Reflections on Indigeneity, Disability and Neo-Colonial Marketing
• ‘My granddaughter doesn’t know she has disabilities and we are not going to tell her’: Navigating Intersections of Indigenousness, Disability and Gender in Labrador
• Disabling Bodies of/and Land: Reframing Disability Justice in Conversation with Indigenous Theory and Activism
• The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its implications for the health and wellbeing of indigenous peoples with disabilities: A comparison across Australia, Mexico and New Zealand
• Challenges in global Indigenous–Disability comparative research, or, why nation-state political histories matter
• ‘Black on the inside’: albino subjectivity in the African novel
• The role of indigenous and external knowledge in development interventions with disabled people in Burkina Faso: the implications of engaging with lived experiences
• An intersection in population control: welfare reform and indigenous people with a partial capacity to work in the Australian northern territory
• Inclusion of marginalised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples with neurocognitive disability in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)

An editorial on the Intersecting of Indigeneity, colonialisation and disability. This editorial provides short descriptions of articles included in the Disability and the Global South, Vol 5. No. 2, 2018.

Tikule Limodzi (‘Let’s Grow Together’) was a three-year (2015 to 2018) multi-agency study that sought to promote the inclusion of children with disabilities in community-based childcare centres (CBBCs) in a rural district of Southern Malawi. The main purpose of the project was to explore ways of developing the skills of caregivers to support children with disabilities in CBCCs through the use of inclusive strategies and resources. This mixed-method study also sought to share evidence that will aid the Malawi government and other stakeholders to better understand the complex dynamics that ‘enable’ or ‘inhibit’ quality early childhood development (ECD) for children with disabilities. 

This report presents the baseline pre-intervention data from a cluster-randomised controlled trial (CRCT) of a caregiver training intervention targeting CBCCs in Thyolo district in the Southern Region of Malawi. The trial involved 48 CBCCs randomly allocated to the control and intervention arms (24 CBCCs each). The training (intervention) consisted of a two-week training programme based on the basic National ECD Caregiver Training Programme, with additional modules on how to improve the inclusion and participation of children with disabilities in CBCCs. The baseline data was collected between December 2016 and May 2017. The aim of the trial was to measure changes in child development outcomes (equal to actual age), school readiness, caregiver satisfaction and motivation, changes in CBBC environment and routine and structure, as well as caregiver retention.

Activities to promote the access of deafblind women and girls to sexual and reproductive health are reported via brief descriptions of what happened, what changed and what worked. Activites included: training the deafblind women in their rights;training relatives of deafblind women, giving advice on general care, as well as highlighting the importance of supporting their sexual and reproductive health choices and promoting family planning; tackling the issue of the forced sterilization; awareness raising via newspapers and radio and improving livelihoods.

This thesis aims to generate further knowledge about prosthetic and orthotic services in developing countries, with a focus on patient mobility and satisfaction with prosthetic and orthotic devices, satisfaction with service delivery, and the views of staff regarding clinical practice and education. The findings are based on patient questionnaires in Malawi and Sierra Leone, including QUEST 2.0, as well as interviews with prosthetic/orthotic technicians in Sierra Leone and Pakistan

School of Health Sciences Dissertation series No. 56, 2014; No. 66, 2014

This report provides a summary of research project conducted by the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Malawi. The study used the Key Informant Method (KIM) to estimate the prevalence of moderate/severe physical, sensory and intellectual impairments and epilepsy among children in two districts (Ntcheu and Thyolo) in Malawi. This report presents summary of the study’s background information, aims and objectives, key findings, conclusions and recommendations

This report provides a general overview of the disability rights movement in southern Africa and highlights the main concerns and challenges, as well as key success stories and best practices