Advocacy
In Colombia, the U.S. government-funded Training, Economic Empowerment, Assistive Technology, and Medical/Physical Rehabilitation Services (TEAM) project engaged 2,749 people with disabilities in CVA processes. Across 18 groups, participants developed action frameworks that prioritized the most frequently violated rights of people with disabilities — such as delays in receiving care, limited access to specialist appointments, poor accessibility in public spaces, and a lack of employment and income-generating opportunities. Local authorities listened and made verbal commitments to address these issues. CVA groups then monitored progress, resulting in 175 concrete actions directly attributed to the process. Perhaps most significantly, the CVA groups helped build stronger relationships around disability — fostering solidarity, deepening understanding, and growing community support.
Education
Primary and pre-primary education: World Vision has integrated inclusive education into our two main program models, Learning Roots (ages 3 to 5) and Unlock Literacy (grades 1 to 3). Program delivery is universal in design, allowing children to receive information in different ways and to express their learning in different ways. Community-based reading camps supplement learning for children who need additional assistance to enhance their literacy. We also focus on increasing acceptance and creating a school environment that includes children with disabilities.
In Malawi, our inclusive education program nearly doubled the number of children with disabilities attending school within a three-year period. We worked with 80 community leaders, including five chiefs, to shift negative norms around disability. As a result, 21% of adults interviewed said they had a child with a disability in their family, whereas previously, the disabilities were hidden.
Development of inclusive, accessible learning materials: All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD) — a partnership of the U.S. government, World Vision, and the Australian government — advanced EdTech innovation and research to improve reading outcomes for marginalized children in low-resource contexts. Through global grant and prize competitions, ACR GCD identified and brought to scale the most promising EdTech solutions to increase literacy for children in low resource contexts, including addressing barriers to learning and developing solutions for children with disabilities. ACR GCD funded extensive research, including on the adaptation of the Early Grade Reading Assessment, to ensure children with disabilities are included in measurements of literacy acquisition and skills.
Data and insights: Through Able to Thrive (see previous question for more information), we’ve gathered data on the education of children with disabilities in Rwanda, Malawi, and Mozambique. The findings highlight the importance of engaging families, communities, and schools together to support each child’s learning needs.
Youth
In Guatemala, World Vision implemented the U.S. government-funded Puentes Project to improve the quality of life for youth ages 15 to 24 in the country’s Western Highlands. This project focused on particularly marginalized youth, including youth with disabilities. Vulnerable youth received information and developed knowledge and skills to gain employment and economic opportunities, as well as education, health services, and social services. They also learned to engage the local government, the private sector, and service providers to improve access to quality services and generate new employment and economic opportunities. The Puentes project partnered with a local federation of organizations of persons with disabilities (OPD) to identify and recruit participants with disabilities and to ensure positive representation of youth with disabilities in the training materials and radio broadcasts. By partnering with an OPD and making activities and content accessible and communications inclusive, Puentes project aimed to be transformational in increasing access to services, decision-making, equitable systems, and meaningful participation of people with disabilities.
In Ethiopia, the Engaged, Educated, Empowered Ethiopian Youth (E4Y) project, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, addressed exploitative child labor by promoting education and vocational training opportunities and enhancing livelihood opportunities and access to social protection programs for youth and their households. E4Y worked with male and female youth from 7,500 households in Ethiopia, emphasizing the inclusion of youth with disabilities while exploring opportunities for disability inclusion in the Ethiopian workplace. The project also focused on education by challenging teachers’ perceptions of gender norms and disability, aiming to improve teachers’ ability to meet the specific needs of children with disabilities. Youth with disabilities were provided with the necessary adaptive devices, such as eyeglasses, crutches, and wheelchairs, to access education and training.
Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)
Because World Vision often begins its work in communities with WASH projects, we recognize that these projects must be disability inclusive to:
- Achieve the basic human right to water and sanitation
- Reach the most vulnerable
- Set the tone for inclusion in other community-based projects to increase access
World Vision collaborates with organizations of persons with disabilities and other nongovernmental organizations to ensure that our WASH programs are inclusive. Together, we’ve developed activities that promote accessible infrastructure and the use of adaptive devices, supported by a practical guide to help implement these approaches.
Our commitment to inclusive WASH has been recognized by the Zero Project, which has awarded a few of our practices for innovation in this area:
Health
World Vision supports the inclusion of children and adults with disabilities in the provision of health services, including in accessible forms and locations. World Vision has implemented programs that provide wheelchairs and other specialized rehabilitation support. We use our extensive health partnerships in communities to identify people with disabilities, refer them to specialized disability service providers, and then follow up at the community level to make sure the services have improved their health and function.
With funding from the U.S. government, World Vision led the Accelerating Core Competencies for Effective Wheelchair Service and Support (ACCESS) project in India, Nicaragua, Romania, El Salvador, and Kenya. ACCESS strengthened the wheelchair sector and helped ensure that people with mobility limitations could access appropriate wheelchairs through qualified service providers and enjoy full participation in their communities. The project provided wheelchair service to 7,319 clients and trained over 900 rehabilitation professionals using World Health Organization courses for wheelchair service. At the end of the project, 93% of wheelchair clients surveyed indicated that they experienced increased community participation, and 43 wheelchair service centers showed increased capacity for service. This link between service provision and community development was the innovation of the ACCESS program, which is now being scaled up across World Vision’s wheelchair programs through our holistic approach.
The U.S. government-funded Training, Economic Empowerment, Assistive Technology, and Medical/Physical Rehabilitation Services (TEAM) project enabled 3,670 persons with disabilities in Colombia to become more independent and integrated into society. The project used mobile clinics coupled with telemedicine to make assistive technology (AT) services more accessible to rural populations. World Vision worked with community-based partners and health systems to identify people for screening and ensure they had the correct documentation to access health insurance. An initial visit by a multidisciplinary team included a screening and assessment. A second visit provided AT devices. Follow-up was then provided through telemedicine that connected community-based primary health service providers with specialists.
Economic empowerment
Persons with disabilities and their families are more likely to be living in poverty because of lower levels of education, the cost of accessing health and rehabilitation services, and productivity lost when care is required for the person with a disability. When World Vision identifies a person with a disability, we ensure that they can access any financial assistance provided by the government and nongovernmental organization support programs.
We have developed a resource to support disability inclusion in agriculture, and our work to support refugees with livelihoods programming was recognized by the Zero Project.
The U.S. government-funded Training, Economic Empowerment, Assistive Technology, and Medical/Physical Rehabilitation Services project worked with persons with disabilities and their families in Colombia to increase their economic well-being. The project organized them into productive groups and equipped them with the necessary skills and resources, like tools, to increase their income by an average of 28%. Participation in these groups also provided individuals living with disabilities with a critical source of emotional and informational support.
🔍Learn more about some of World Vision’s promising practices by reviewing the Children with Disability: Promising Practices report.
