Disability and Development Partners – DDP
[Source: Disability and Development Partners, 2006]
As a founder member of the UK Working Group on Landmines, Jaipur Limb Campaign (as Disability Development Partners was then known) began work over 10 years ago with local partners, the Mozambican Red Cross Society (CVM). Together we set up a limb rehabilitation centre in Gaza Province, an area where many people - combatants and civilians alike – had lost limbs or the use of limbs as a result of the war, but had no access to affordable, local rehabilitation services.
DDP’s Indian partner organisations provided materials, technical advice and training for Mozambican technicians, while project support and funding were raised by DDP from Comic Relief and the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, among others. An Easter appeal through the Anglican Diocese in Europe also helped to develop the Centro Ortopédico Jaipur (COJ) in Manjacaze, Gaza Province. COJ continues to function today, providing artificial limbs, calipers, physiotherapy, repairs and replacements. COJ has also become a focal point for disabled people in Gaza Province.
DDP’s other main Mozambican programme is a partnership with Associação dos Deficientes Moçambicanos (ADEMO) - a national disabled people’s organisation, building their capacity to advocate for their members’ rights, as well as working on livelihood projects in Maputo and Gaza Province.
DDP would like to do more in Mozambique, where the situation for many disabled people remains very bad. Meanwhile we continue to support our two partners - CVM and ADEMO.
It was largely thanks to an introduction by the Anglican Church through Revd Michael Clark and an invitation from Revd André Soares, then Archdeacon of Angola, that DDP first went to Angola in 2001. With support from the Diana Fund, we carried out a feasibility study on the disability scenario, identified and met prospective local partners. We found that while there was a national rehabilitation strategy and rehabilitation centres in key locations, disabled people themselves felt very excluded from society and were deeply disadvantaged by displacement, poverty and disability.
Catarina, a landmine amputee, earns her living as a taxi driver in the Dignidade auto-rickshaw income generating project, Viana, Angola.
For the past five years DDP has been working with Liga de Apoio a Integração dos Deficientes (LARDEF) – the league to support the integration of disabled people – a national organisation of disabled people, founded by two war veterans to support disabled people in their struggle to access human, economic, social rights and rehabilitation services. Programmes span the whole range from capacity building, awareness and advocacy, to livelihoods and rehabilitation technician training. LARDEF has started income generating schemes in Viana Luanda), Benguela and Moxico Provinces. More income generating projects are planned in the provinces of Huambo and Cuando Cubango as LARDEF’s capacity grows with support through DDP, alongside work to ensure that disabled people are included in mainstream development, social, education and health programmes.
Our experience of working with disabled peoples’ organisations in Mozambique and Angola has made us aware of the situation of disabled people in the other 3 Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa - São Tomé and Principe, Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau. Disabled people here are marginalised and suffer extreme poverty and there are very few programmes either by the governments or NGOs that address disabled peoples’ basic needs. We are currently developing a programme to network organisations and disabled people across this linguistic grouping in Africa and to set up specific programmes of work in each of these countries.
