Development Ratings

Increasing mobility and ability to lead a more normal life: Being able to get around more easily and carry out otherwise simple tasks increases each disabled person’s chance of enjoying normal life. There remains a big gap in these countries between the need and the supply of services so far.

Allowing entrepreneurship possibilities: 200 disabled people given small business grants, 144 given vocational or on-the-job training, and over 5,400 provided with rehabilitation services allows them all to be more able to earn a regular income and support their families. A mobility device has allowed one disabled woman to get a job and earn £45 a month when she was unable to earn at all before. Grants have helped develop businesses, one woman earning around £75 a month from improving her trade income. Training has, for instance, helped one family expand into small animal rearing for income and improved nutrition from meat and eggs. Inclusion of disabled people into the local economy will reduce the costs of their support, will free-up other family members to study or carry out productive work, and will increase the chances of local development becoming sustainable.

Improving educational opportunities: Meeting their needs helps 236 disabled children attend school who otherwise would not have been able to. This clearly increases their lifetime earnings potential.

Developing local and regional capacity: The decimation of the medical sector in Cambodia and Timor L’este in terms of infrastructure and staff is slowly being reversed. Graduates of the early training programmes are now working, managing in-country services, and teaching others, to develop the next generation of specialists. The training centres’ graduates come from a range of low income countries which spreads the capacity building and the sharing of common lessons wider in the region.

Supporting the rights of disabled people: Highlighting, and eliminating where possible, the physical, cultural, legal and social barriers for disabled people means that there is greater access than before to education and work opportunities, services, healthcare and general community inclusion.