Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD)

SAFOD, OSISA Sign Contracts for two new Projects

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25 December, 2015

One of the two projects seeks to to strengthen the capacity of Disability Peoples Organisations (DPOs) and other community structures working in already existing Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programs in increasing access to quality ECDE services for children with Special Needs Education (SEN), so that they learn together with the other children without disabilities on an equal basis while their specific needs are being addressed.

SAFOD and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) in November and December 2015 signed two contracts within a space of three weeks for two separate projects. One is on capacity building of SAFOD's national affiliate, the Federation Organization of the Disabled People in Swaziland (FODSWA), in promoting an Inclusive Legislative Environment in Swaziland; whereas the other project is on promoting Inclusion in ECDE within CBR Programs in Angola, Mozambique, Lesotho and Zambia.

The project in Swaziland was jointly developed SAFOD and its affiliate (FODSWA) to promote and demand the implementation of policies and legislation that promote the rights of persons with disabilities in Swaziland. This will be done on the background that FODSWA has experienced a number of institutional challenges ranging from leadership management crises to funding challenges which consequently affected the operations of the FODSWA and has had to scale down its activities for several years, and its secretariat shut down.

FODSWA was formed in 1993 by disabled people's organizations. The main purpose of the formation of the Federation was to build effective and efficient leadership amongst its affiliates and to act as a link between government and disabled people's organizations.

Planned activities therefore include supporting FODSWA to get back on its feet and at the same time support its member organisations. The rationale being that FODSWA can only be strong if its members are also strong.
Thus, SAFOD will work FODSWA to strengthen its institutional capacity and that of its member DPOs. This support includes the facilitation of key institutional capacity-building processes, as well as providing training in governance and leadership management, advocacy and lobbying techniques; policy analysis; and monitoring of the UNCRPD and other relevant instruments.

On the other hand, the project in Angola, Mozambique, Lesotho and Zambia seeks to strengthen the capacity of Disability Peoples Organisations (DPOs) and other community structures working in already existing Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programs in increasing access to quality ECDE services for children with Special Needs Education (SEN).
This project has been conceptualized based on the academic theory that there is a strong correlation between and CBR and inclusive ECDE, and as SAFOD, we intend turn the theory into practice. The general consensus is that, on one hand, CBR aims to focus on rehabilitation, equalization of opportunities and social inclusion of all persons with disabilities and their families. On the other hand, Inclusive Education (IE) has a similar philosophy and aims to include children with disabilities in mainstream education and pre-school settings, overcoming barriers to learning and participation in community educational settings. Both approaches value diversity and promote inclusion. Both programs also aim to ensure that individuals with disabilities have equal access to the services that are available to other people in the community, such as pre-schooling.
SAFOD therefore intends to strengthen this correlation that exists between BCR and Inclusive ECDE through its national federations of DPOs in the four aforementioned countries through capacity-building of our national affiliate federations of DPOs whose some of their member DPOs are already involved in the CBR programs on the ground.