To support political participation of persons with disabilities, add some of the following activities to your action plan.
Use your mouse or keyboard to expand each of the activity headings below. To add an activity to your action plan, select the Add button beside it.
Use your mouse or keyboard to expand each of the activity headings below. To add an activity to your action plan, select the Add button beside it. Once you have added an activity to your action plan, select Action plan > My action plan from the menu above to complete that activity.
Ensure CBR personnel understand and are able to educate others about the political system
CBR needs to have a practical understanding of how the government works and how to build partnerships and influence change. These activities can help:
Identifying key legislation and policies concerning disability and the development sectors
Researching the role of the government and the responsibilities of each department
Analysing the existing power structure and identifying who has the power to make decisions
Meeting regularly with political representatives from all political affiliations
Facilitate development of political awareness in the community
Many people with disabilities may not be aware how to vote; or they may be unaware of the existence of national laws regarding disability rights or international conventions, such as the CRPD.
To encourage political participation, CBR programmes can:
Encourage adults with disabilities to join literacy programmes (see the Education module for more)
Ensure that people with disabilities have access to training on advocacy and rights
Link people with disabilities to self-help groups and disabled people’s organizations, where they can learn skills like public speaking, problem-solving and campaigning that will be useful for political participation
Support individuals who can serve as role models and disability champions
Encourage people with disabilities to run for elections or apply for leadership roles in the community
Ensure that children and adolescents are included in activities where they have the opportunity to express their opinions, make decisions, and understand the consequences of their actions.
Raise disability awareness within the political system
Another part of the strategy to enabling people with disabilities to participate in politics is to develop disability awareness within political systems. Suggested activities include:
Making local political representatives aware that legislation related to disability exists.
Conducting disability-awareness training with local councils – with people with disabilities taking leadership roles in providing this training
Involving political leaders and representatives in activities carried out by CBR and people with disabilities. Possible activities include inviting them to provide training on available government programmes or to participate in events such as the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, International Women’s Day, World Health Day and Human Rights Day.
Facilitate access to political processes and decision-making
CBR can work in partnership with self-help groups, disabled people’s organizations and others to ensure that barriers to political participation are reduced or removed. Suggested activities include:
Providing recommendations to local authorities about making voting sites and procedures accessible to people with disabilities
Encouraging electoral commissions and advocacy groups to inform voters with disabilities about their voting rights, as well as what types of assistance are available to enable them to participate
Encouraging political leaders and parties to develop accessible campaign materials that include depictions of voters with disabilities
Investigating transport options to enable people with disabilities to reach voting venues
Identifying the political positions and government jobs that are reserved for marginalized groups and encourage people with disabilities to take apply for them
Facilitating access to administrative documents that individuals with disabilities need in order to exert their citizenship
Supporting people with disabilities and disabled people’s organizations to take part in decision- making processes, such as consultations or local development plans
Learn about the steps that were taken to enable blind individuals to vote in Ghana
CBR in Action
The International Foundation of Electoral Systems (IFES) was awarded a grant from the Finland Ministry for Foreign Affairs to design and pilot-test a ballot in Ghana that would enable blind voters to vote secretly and independently.
As in most low-income nations, Ghanaian voters who are blind rely on assistants to help them vote. The ballot that was pilot-tested did not use Braille, but instead relied on tactile cues, as less than 1% of blind adults in Ghana are literate.
The ballot was tested in elections in 2002, and was designed in collaboration with:
The Ghana Electoral Commission
The Ghana Federation of the Disability Associations, and
Welcome to INCLUDE! This short tour will introduce you to the many resources available to you in our
learning community.
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This is the Module library page. It is the first thing you will see after you register and log into INCLUDE.
From here, you can choose to view nine different learning modules, each of which examines a different aspect of Community-Based Rehabilitation.
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Each time you make a selection from the Module library, you will enter a learning module (in this case the Health module) that you can interact with in a number of ways.
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You will have a number of opportunities to reflect on your thoughts, feelings and experiences related to CBR, as well as on what you have learned so far. If you want, you can choose to share your reflections with other members of the INCLUDE community.
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Note that when you are inside a learning module, you use the Continue and Back buttons at the bottom of the screen to move ahead to the next page, or go back to the previous page.
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You can also choose to jump directly to a different part of the current module by making a selection from the menu on the left side of the screen.
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In each learning module, you will also have the opportunity to respond to poll questions and learn what others in the INCLUDE community are thinking about CBR.
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You can also review numerous real-life examples of how others are successfully implementing CBR around the world.
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And you can create an action plan to help you:
•Better understand the needs of your programme, and
•Take specific, concrete steps to address them
As with reflections, if you want, you can also choose to share your action plan with other members of the community.
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Additional resources are available any time you want to access them, frrom the menu at the top of every screen.
From the Reflect option on this menu, you can:
•Review all of the reflections you have entered so far, or
•View the reflections other members of the INCLUDE community have entered and chosen to share
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Under Action Plan, you can:
•Work on your own action plan, or
•View action plans that other members of the community have created and chosen to share
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You can also view the full library of real-life examples of CBR in action from this menu.
If you want to locate the examples that are most relevant to your work, you can filter these examples by subject and region, as well as by the gender and age(s) of the population being served.
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In the Community section you can:
•Participate in conversations (discussions) with other members of the INCLUDE community
•View the results of every poll question included in the course
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Finally, you can view a set of additional resources related to CBR in the Resource library.
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Finally, you can view a set of additional resources related to CBR in the Resource library.
