The activities below can help you address the needs of people with disabilities living with HIV and AIDS:
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.
Facilitate access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support
CBR should work towards addressing the barriers that limit the full participation of people with disabilities in HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support in the following ways:
Making people with disabilities individually and with their family members aware of the HIV and AIDS programmes and services being offered in their communities and making sure that they are aware that they have a right to attend
Ensuring that HIV and AIDS programmes and services are physically accessible
Encouraging HIV and AIDS programmes and services to show disabled people in posters, billboards or other materials designed for the general public
Working together with DPOs to advise HIV and AIDS programmes and services on how to make simple adaptations to their interventions to ensure that messages are understood by people with disabilities
Giving information and education materials on HIV and AIDS to people with disabilities who are at risk
Working together with disabled people’s organizations to advise HIV and AIDS programmes and services on how to adapt existing materials to make them accessible
Working together with disabled people’s organizations to develop new programmes, services and materials for people with disabilities who cannot be reached by those designed for the general population
Providing practical assistance
Ensuring people with disabilities and their families receive appropriate follow-up
Learn about how a young woman with a disability manages HIV.
CBR in Action
In Uganda, a young woman with a hearing impairment had a sexual relationship with an HIV-positive man. She became pregnant, and the man took no responsibility for the relationship or the child. Family members became concerned that she might have contracted HIV, and took her to an HIV and AIDS counsellor. She tested positive, and arrangements were made for her to receive anti-retroviral drugs. Now she and her baby (who did not test positive) are doing well. She takes her medication regularly, is working and is also helping out at home. Her family now encourages other families with disabled family members to access HIV and AIDS information and services.
In Uganda, a young woman with a hearing impairment had a sexual relationship with an HIV-positive man. She became pregnant, and the man took no responsibility for the relationship or the child. Family members became concerned that she might have contracted HIV, and took her to an HIV and AIDS counsellor. She tested positive, and arrangements were made for her to receive anti-retroviral drugs. Now she and her baby (who did not test positive) are doing well. She takes her medication regularly, is working and is also helping out at home. Her family now encourages other families with disabled family members to access HIV and AIDS information and services.
Include people living with HIV and AIDS in CBR programmes
CBR should address the needs of people living with HIV and AIDS who may experience disability. Some people living with HIV and AIDS may require access to specialized services. CBR can facilitate this in many ways.
Build capacity
Different stakeholders can benefit from capacity-building, including people with disabilities and their family members, CBR personnel, disabled people’s organizations, health workers and members of the community. CBR can take the following actions:
Promote activities and support initiatives that strengthen the roles of women in decision- making about HIV and disability
Ensure that people who provide support and assistance to people with disabilities living with HIV and AIDS receive adequate training and support
Strengthen their own programmes to ensure that HIV and AIDS and related issues are addressed
Where necessary, provide CBR personnel with additional training on HIV and AIDS
Involve disabled people’s organizations and people with disabilities in HIV and AIDS activities
In partnership with disabled people’s organizations, train HIV and AIDS stakeholders about disability issues
Educate community and religious leaders about disability and HIV and AIDS issues, and encourage them to take action to challenge negative attitudes and promote inclusion in their communities
Educate people involved in law enforcement about disability and HIV and AIDS issues and the need to protect the safety and human rights of people with disabilities
Create networks and partnerships
People with disabilities are at risk of HIV and AIDS and people living with HIV and AIDS may experience disability. Because of this relationship between disability and HIV and AIDS, strong networks and partnerships need to be built between disability and HIV and AIDS stakeholders. To support this, CBR should take the following actions:
Attend events and meetings in the community on HIV and AIDS to ensure that disability issues are considered
Invite representatives from the HIV and AIDS community to events and meetings on disability
Work closely with disabled people’s organizations to develop local strategies to reach people with disabilities with HIV and AIDS information and education, identify training needs in the community and educate HIV and AIDS workers about disability
Share the disability and rehabilitation expertise of CBR with HIV and AIDS networks
Invite HIV and AIDS programmes and services to share their specialist skills and knowledge with CBR and DPOs.
Set up referral systems between CBR and HIV and AIDS programmes
Promote a multi-sectoral approach
Review the Health, Education, Livelihood, Social and Empowerment modules for a comprehensive overview of suggested activities, some of which are to:
Address disability and HIV and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination that may be present in communities and across each sector
Promote people with disabilities’ the right to sex education, and ensure that the environments where this training is provided are inclusive and accessible
Ensure that people with disabilities living with HIV and AIDS and their family members are able to access livelihood opportunities
Ensure that people with disabilities and HIV and AIDS are able to access formal and informal social protection schemes
Ensure that people with disabilities are able to access programmes that are designed to prevent and address sexual abuse
Promote inclusive national policies and programming
As people with disabilities are often left out of HIV and AIDS policies and programming, CBR should join with other groups to advocate and lobby for change. For example, the Africa Campaign on Disability and HIV and AIDS, launched in 2007, is a unifying umbrella organization under which DPOs, organizations of people living with HIV and AIDS, non-governmental organizations, HIV and AIDS services, researchers, activists and other citizens work collectively to promote equal access to HIV programmes and full participation in AIDS policies and strategic plans for people with disabilities.
New milestones
South Africa first included people with disabilities in the National AIDS strategic plan in 2007-2009. This was prompted by a combination of leadership from champions within the government, the strong organization of the disability sector and self-representation in the South African National AIDS Council.
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.
