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Background: Despite Uganda’s progress in promoting affirmative action for persons with disabilities and its strategy of using microfinance to fight poverty, access to microfinance services by persons with disabilities is still problematic due to barriers, characterised by discrepancies between policies and practices. Regarding education, the affirmative action in favour of learners with disabilities has not translated into actual learning opportunities due to personal and environmental barriers.

Objectives: The study on which this article is based investigated the non-formal and informal adult learning practices regarding microfinance that persons with disabilities engaged in. This article seeks to illuminate the barriers that a person with a visual impairment encountered while learning about and engaging with microfinance and the strategies that he developed to overcome them.

Methods: This was a case study, framed within the social model of disability and critical research paradigm. Data were collected through in-depth interviews of a person with visual impairment and observations of the environment in which adult learning and engagement with Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs) occurred.

Results: Findings indicate that the person with a visual disability faced barriers to learning about microfinance services. He experienced barriers in an integrated manner and developed strategies to overcome these barriers. The barriers and strategies are theorised using the social model of disability.

Conclusion: The case of a person with visual impairment suggests that persons with disabilities face multiple barriers regarding microfinance, including social, psychological and educational. However, his own agency and attitudes were also of importance as they influenced his learning. Viewing these barriers as blockades can lead to non-participation in learning and engagement with microfinance whereas viewing them as surmountable hurdles can potentially motivate participants to succeed in learning about and engaging with microfinance.

Background: Children with disabilities in Sub-Saharan Africa depend for a large part of their functioning on their parent or caregiver. This study explores parental stress and support of parents of children with spina bifida in Uganda.

Objectives: The study aimed to explore perceived stress and support of parents of children with spina bifida living in Uganda and the factors that influence them.

Methods: A total of 134 parents were interviewed. Focus group discussions were held with four parent support groups in four different regions within the country. The Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales, Daily Functioning Subscales and Parental Stress Index Short Form (PSI/SF) were administered to measure the child’s daily functioning level and parental stress levels.

Results: Parental stress was high in our study population with over half of the parents having a > 90% percentile score on the PSI/SF. Stress outcomes were related to the ability to walk (Spearman’s correlation coefficient [ρ] = −0.245), continence (ρ = −0.182), use of clean intermittent catheterisation (ρ = −0.181) and bowel management (ρ = −0.213), receiving rehabilitative care (ρ = −0.211), household income (ρ = −0.178), geographical region (ρ = −0.203) and having support from another parent in taking care of the child (ρ = −0.234). Linear regression showed parental stress was mostly explained by the child’s inability to walk (β = −0.248), practicing bowel management (β = −0.468) and having another adult to provide support in caring for the child (β = −0.228). Parents in northern Uganda had significantly higher scores compared to parents in other regions (Parental Distress, F = 5.467*; Parent–Child Dysfunctional Interaction, F = 8.815**; Difficult Child score, F = 10.489**).

Conclusion: Parents of children with spina bifida experience high levels of stress. To reduce this stress, rehabilitation services should focus on improving mobility. Advocacy to reduce stigmatisation and peer support networks also need to be strengthened and developed.

There are three key revelations from literature on disability and armed conflict in the Global South. First, though disability is a relative term, models from the Global North are widely used irrespective of indigenous knowledges and contexts. Second, though disability is caused by colonial and post-colonial inequalities such as poverty, disabled people are often forgotten in poverty reduction programmes. Third, while many countries experience armed conflict, little is known about its effects on disabled people living in contexts of armed conflict. This realisation led to the aims of this study which were to: i) investigate how disability is understood in the armed conflict setting of Uganda; ii) to understand the experiences of disabled people in armed conflict settings; and iii) examine ways of improving the experience of disabled people in the Global South. Using a critical, constructivist and grounded research methodology, the study revealed the nature of ‘African disabilities’ and the challenges faced by disabled people living in conflict settings: displacement, dehumanisation, rampant poverty and neo-colonialism. Disabled people experience rejection in their communities and invisibility in the provision of services. Using literature as a dialogue partner, this study concludes that the ways in which disabled people are treated runs counter to many African beliefs on what it means to be human and live in a community. Consequently, it proposes a theory which contains critical knowledge on how the Africanisation of disability could be thought of and brought about in conflict settings.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 1

This booklet is the gateway for a training kit on personalised social support (PSS). The aim of this training course is to train social facilitators either in the personalised approach only, or in how to carry out a complete PSS process. The aim of this booklet is therefore to impart the methodological and educational components required to use the content of this training course to Handicap International’s (now Humanity and Inclusion) future PSS trainers. It therefore takes another look at the entire content of the PSS training course, explains the educational choices, presents the modules and other teaching tools created, and above all, provides advice/recommendations for future designers and trainers/facilitators on this theme. Throughout this booklet, internet links provide the reader with quick access to the content of training courses and other relevant resources

Persons with disabilities remain one of the most vulnerable and socially excluded groups in any displaced community. Barriers to accessing humanitarian assistance programs increase their protection risks, including risk of violence, abuse and exploitation. Women’s Refugee Commission has been supporting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and implementing partners to translate guidance on disability inclusion into practice at field levels through the provision of technical support to eight country operations. In the course of the project, WRC has consulted with over 600 persons with disabilities and care-givers and over 130 humanitarian actors in displacement contexts. Key protection concerns identified include a lack of participation in community decision making; stigma and discrimination of children and young persons with disabilities by their non-disabled peers; violence against persons with disabilities, including gender-based violence; lack of access to disabilityspecific health care; and unmet basic needs among families of persons with multiple impairments. Suggested strategies to further advance disability inclusion in humanitarian programming include: strengthening identification of protection risks and case management services for persons with disabilities; facilitating contextspecific action planning around key guidelines; and engaging the disability movement in advocacy on refugee issues.

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 1

This paper explores the complex intersections of race, gender and disability, whilst offering a critical reflection on how disability studies discourse and ecofeminist approaches together elucidate a subjectivity that is unique, distinct and influential in generating participatory action research knowledge. Reflection and insights are based on empirical work with small-scale farmers (mainly women) in the central region of Uganda carried out for a PhD study. The study aimed to illuminate the broad and complex livelihood experiences of domestic banana (staple crop) cultivators and their perceptions of bio-technological intervention in the form of banana tissue culture (TC) and the associated processes. Subjectivity between the researcher and respondents is a two-way process. As a researcher who is disabled woman using a wheelchair, working in the field required much adaptation physically and mentally. Equally, my disability shaped respondents’ perceptions of me as a person, a researcher as well as their responses. In fact, arguably, my disability facilitated unusual circumstances and opened up doors to sensitive questions, personal accounts and a mutual rapport between the farmers and myself. The influence of the disabled research subject fostered exceptional conditions to propagate inclusive investigative methods to represent ‘the lived experience’ of the farmer in a procedure not often applied in agricultural research.

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 3

This report presents research about efforts to meet the needs and uphold the rights of persons with disabilities in four thematic areas: health care, rehabilitation, work and employment, and accessibility and enabling environments. Research findings are drawn from the experiences of landmine and cluster munition survivors and other persons with similar needs in 33 countries experiencing armed conflict or emerging from armed conflict or political or economic transition. Findings are placed within the context of relevant articles of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the World Report on Disability

This report “documents positive practices and ongoing challenges to promote disability inclusion across UNHCR’s and its partners’ work in multiple countries and multiple displacement contexts. The report provides lessons and recommendations for other organizations and the wider humanitarian community on engaging persons with disabilities at all levels of humanitarian work. It draws on consultations with over 700 displaced persons, including persons with disabilities, their families, and humanitarian staff, in eight countries”

Note: This report is also offered in plain text format

This issue of Frontiers of CTLS (Community led total sanitation) focuses on “people with disabilities and particular needs for access to sanitation. There are many forms of disability, including mobility impairments, sensory impairments (affecting sight or hearing), chronic illness, impairments caused by older age or mental health issues.  People affected tend not to be present at triggering, to lack voice in the community, to have their needs overlooked, and may even be hidden by their families. This issue outlines the reality of the experiences of disabled people, the varied nature of their needs and how they can be met. It includes practical recommendations for people engaged in CLTS to make the different phases and processes of CLTS more inclusive”

Frontiers of CLTS : innovations and insights, Issue 03

A video and presentation is also available