Gender and Community
Based Rehabilitation (CBR)
Presented by:
Lynette Injette Ochola
LCD East and North African Region
What is CBR?
• Emphasis on improving the lives of
Persons With Disabilities (PWD’s)
• It is a way forward for ingraining PWD’s
into the development of their communities
and themselves. CBR seeks to ensure that
PWD’s have equal access to rehabilitation
and other services and opportunities –
health, education and income (WHO
definition)
Gender Mainstreaming
• Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of
assessing the implications for women and men of any
planned action, including legislation, policies or
programmes in any area and at all levels
• It is a strategy for making concerns and experiences of
women as well as men an integral part of the design,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies
and programmes in all political, economic and societal
spheres, so that women and men benefit equally and
inequality is not perpetuated
• The ultimate goal of mainstreaming is to achieve gender
equality!
• GENDER IS NOT EQUAL TO WOMEN!
Why Gender and CBR?
•
Women and Girls who are disabled face double
disadvantage: “Double Discrimination” and face
further obstacles from accessing equal
opportunity: education, health care,
employment/income generating activities
Why?
• Poverty
• Cultural challenges and strict religious norms in
certain societies (Women’s role in the household,
stigma of being disabled etc)
•
•
•
The effect of HIV/AIDS and Malaria
which has a disproportionately higher
prevalence rate on women and girls
Social factors: domestic abuse, early
pregnancies, rape, high rates of maternal
mortality, Female Genital Mutilation
In general, some disabilities are found
significantly more often in girls and
women (e.g., blindness, multiple
sclerosis, osteoporosis) (World Bank)
The importance of streamlining
Gender and CBR
• Women/girls constitute a dynamic force of any
given society. Given the opportunity and
recognition they can go a long way in
contributing to sustainable development,
improving quality of life for themselves and their
peers/communities
• Most successful Micro-credit schemes are
operationalized by women (such as Merry Go
rounds): issues of trust, commitment and
responsibility
• Enforcing basic human rights
• Women have played the most
active part in the fight against
Malaria in sub-saharan Africa with
their role in Ante-Natal clinics. The
same can be said with HIV/AIDS
prevention/awareness initiatives.
• International documents such as the ILO,
WHO, UNSECO draft “Guidelines” on CBR
do not give any specific focus on Gender and
CBR issues.
• The document gives no articulate direction on
“HOW?” to carry out CBR with an emphasis
on placing attention to Women and Girls. For
example women and girls, especially those
with disability face very different
health/medical challenges than males that
require different approaches to address.
• In many societies women trained as home
based care providers make the best care
providers and an extremely effective source for
streamlining CBR initiatives.
Trained Female Home Based Carers conduct home visits to perform basic
physiotherapy for PWD’s in Nyanza Province, Kenya
Success at a local project level: An example of
the Oriang Inclusive Education Project, Nyanza
Province-Kenya
• Girls given an equal opportunity to learn in a
schooling environment made conducive for
disability
• Boys and Girls learn together and show equal
respect to each other
• Important barrier crossed: Community and parents
sensitized on the importance of sending girls with
disability to school
• Teachers (Male and Female), School
Disability Committee’s, Community elders
all play an active role in advocating for the
cause of disability and inclusive education
with an emphasis on creating equal
opportunity for girls
• Gender not just focused on Women/Girls to
enhance CBR but an active participation of
both male and female to encourage Inclusive
Education as a means of fostering CBR
Other successful contributing factors towards
Gender mainstreaming into CBR:
• Advocacy initiatives: Influencing policy at
national and international levels to
integrate Gender issues
• Economic Empowerment: Creating
Income Generating Activities that are
appropriate to the pervading situation i.e.
CBR - questions to ask
• Has the development of CBR been a
participatory approach or has it been more of a
vertical ‘top down’ construction of concepts
and issues?
• Can certain CBR concepts as outlined in the
draft guidelines be applied to the grassroot
level?
• Must not CBR guidelines be specific for every
respective community, especially with relation
to Gender?
• Shouldn’t CBR be more than the adoption of
an equal opportunities policy
Way Forward
• Need for specific, user friendly guidelines on
CBR with a component for Gender and CBR that
can be used at all levels: from policy makers to
community health workers (more resources,
time, stakeholder participation to validate and
streamline such a document)
• Increased community awareness initiatives
• Increased training initiatives on Gender and
CBR for teachers, parents, community
elders/leaders, private co-operations, microcredit organizations, the media
• Greater advocacy initiatives: measures to
influence policy at a national and international
level
• Participatory involvement of girls/women with
disabilities in design of projects, awareness
sessions, conferences/seminars/trainings
• Specific attention to certain health related standards
that affect women/girls more and in turn affect their
level of integration: e.g. sanitation
• Adopting a radical political agenda which asserts not
only women's needs but their rights to full
participation in decision making at all levels
• Effort should be directed towards ensuring that
Gender and CBR initiatives are tackled in a manner
that are ‘Bottom-Up’ and PARTICIPATORY. Anything
else can not work at the field level!
THANK YOU!
East and North African Region
P.O. Box 38748 Nairobi 00600
Kenya
Email: info@lci-enar.org
Website: www.lcint.org