Disability is not Inability

:: Health Programme

The health Programme mainly targets building the capacity to deliver health services to the disability community. It also targets to improve the health awareness of PWDs. Finally it targets to improve the Health policy environment by advocating for improved access to health.

The health programme invloves a) building the disability-friendliness of the Health services in Kenya. b) increasing health awareness of people living with disabilities. c) developing disability-friendly public health information.

Background

The health participation rates of people with disabilities is very low compared to other members of the Kenyan society. This is mainly because the barriers to entry are disability-specific. Health personnel may not have skills to communicate with people with communication disabilities like the deaf and deaf-blind. Health facilities may be inaccessible due to achitectural structures that are beyond the access of wheelchair bound persons. Health materials in preventive programs are not sensitive nor adopted to those living with disabilities.

This has built alternative health services among those providers like herbal or traditional medicine who can adopt to the challenges of disability.

Ability health Programme

Ability International Works with various stakeholders through its netwrok of projects to build the disability-friendliness of the health facilities in Kenya.

a) building the disability-friendliness of the Health services in Kenya.

A disability-friendly health facility is one in which all members of society irrespective of their abilities can have quality and equitable healthcare. This applies to both preventive and curative health services. The adjustments required to health care facilities in resource-scarce environments are challenging to build but necessary. Any hospital should be responsive to the needs of all the potential clients in its catchment area.

b) increasing health awareness of people living with disabilities.

Coming from a historical background exclusion and ignorance, many PWDs grow without much knowledge of health issues that we take for granted as people without disabilities. This is mainly because disability and the stigmas and negative attitudes that comes with it make society unable to educate formally or informally people living especially with communication disabilities. Persons with disabilities therefore grow up disenfranchised from health system in its entirerity. Many are therefore at risk of health challenges that either remain untreated or are fataly due to preventable causes.

The education and creation of awareness among persons with disability is integral not only to improve hospital particip[ation rates, but also to improve the healthy lifestyles we live as perons with disabilities.

To achieve this the programme works with various stakeholders and has projects that build awareness in all areas. We develop/adopt various health information into disability-friendly forms. This ranges from Health and sexuality sign language manual to Posters, brochures, videos, etc.

These are then distributed to the communities living with disabilities through various methods including seminars, workshops, and peer education.

The website disabilitykenya.org is also being strategically built and is a growing health information resource centre available to all through the internet.


c) developing disability-friendly public health information.

This also means that when we public health information is developed in various burning health issues, it is important that this is also adopted into disability-friendly modes. This will increase inclusion and awareness, which is quite important for pandemics like HIV/AIDS TB and Malaria common in sub-saharan Africa.

We as Ability take a two way approach to this depending on our comparative advantages. Where we have technical knowhow like sign language, we adopt materials and upload them into the website fro free access by other services providers and users.

In other circumstances working with other stakeholders like KNDAEP or NCPWDs we reproduce and diseminate the materials to users and services providers. There is need for support in both areas. The need for more Health information, education and communication materials to be reproduced and distributed faces inadequately resource allocations.

Ability International

Category: Health

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