Involving international volunteers & staff with disabilities
07:36, 19 December 2008
.. Posted in Volunteerism and Volunteer Management.. Link
Recently, I was an online audience member for a live presentation by Mobility International USA (MIUSA) regarding Volunteers with Disabilities Serving Internationally (special thanks to the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange for allowing me to participate in this normally AmeriCorps-only event).
Creating an environment where all staff, volunteers and paid staff alike, people with and without disabilities, will feel welcomed and fully-supported to contribute is something I'm dedicated to in any place that I work. But that dedication often meets with a lot of resistance in aid, relief and development work. I have been quite disturbed at how reluctant so many that work in aid, relief and development and that place people in developing countries are to hire people with disabilities. These agencies aren't bound by the laws of the USA, where such discrimination is against the law. It doesn't matter to the staff at such agencies if the best person for a role happens to be a person with a disability; such candidates are often automatically discarded. They also seem to tune out any information about the advantages of involving people with disabilities specifically in development work. But I keep plugging along...
MIUSA offers a free booklet to view online, "Moving Towards Inclusion: Stories of People with Disabilities in International Development," that documents success stories of inclusion of people with disabilities in various development activities, not just as recipients of service, but also as volunteers and paid staff. It includes a former Peace Corps volunteer giving a step-by-step account of how Peace Corps Bangladesh made its program more inclusive, and how The Trickle Up Program, which implements microenterprise programs world wide, became more inclusive of people with disabilities.
Jayne Cravens
