Disability is not Inability

:: STEADMAN GROUP WINS HI TENDER TO DO A DISABILITY AND HIV/AIDS SURVEY.

A leading opinion research organisation The steadman Group known for its clear prediction of the referendum vote, won the tender to find out the opinion of various people with disabilities to HIV/AIDS.

The survey which was tendered by Handicap International one of the organisations working with people with disabilities in HIV/AIDS in Kenya, is intended to find new or confirm theories about disability as a burden for HIV/AIDS.

It is heart warming to see the demand for more evidence-based disability programming being heeded by more research intitiative. This research should be mirrored within the on-going ABBA process led by RATN which intitiated a sector-wide evidence based research project to find out disability challenges within HIV/AIDS.

Steadman may be guru in public opinion research but not within disability. There are already reports that in this time and days a research team led by a person with disabilities would have been more effective. This has also brought to for issues of participation in the projects research or otherwise. Unless it is a one time stance, Steadman may need more significant structural adjustments within its strategic framework before being able to satisfactorily provide disability

The role and methodology that comes with a new entrant is however borne to have its challenges.

The tender went through normal competitive bidding and reports are that the others competitors were to pricey. The issue of price and the output expectations of the tenderer may have been significant in determining Steadman the winner.

the unique challenge Steadman group faces is the quality of adjustments they will achieve...

One of the costs of low price may be low participation by people with disabilities. Sources believe Steadman may not be able to pay for the adjustments it may need to bring in the full needs of people with disabilities. Several adjustments are necessary when doing research within people with disabilities. these may among other include: questionnire context and assumptions, quality of sign language interpretation, sample grouping, mode of information transfer and contexts in analysis of answers.

Interpreters for example may not be the best for doing research among hearing impaired populations. This is essentially an issue where standards in sign language interpretation and weak. Again relations between know-it-all attitudes of many sign language interpreters can load misrepresented contexts.

Steadman strong objective for research quality may also see them overcome these challenges. The demand for quality research cannot be over-emphasised especially almost a decade since the beginning of HIV/AIDS initiatives targteing people with disabilties.

Public opinion research may be significantly when done among the general population as opposed to persons with disabilites, but the leadership, input and widespread participation is quite important aspects of successful research programming.

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