Thursday, April 7, 2011

Policy Advocates

Our day today was spent listening to policy advocates in Zambia. We went to the Zambian Federation of Disability Organizations - ZAFOD. Check out their web site: http://www.zafod.org/ This group has made much progress in building a coalition of disability organizations and in litigation on behalf of individuals with disabilities. Their priorities now seem to be with transition and employment - much like in the U.S.

After that we went to visit ADD Zambia today only to learn that last week it was shut down and does not exist any longer. I went onto their website tonight and they still say they have a program in Zambia. Interesting.... Here is their web site: http://www.add.org.uk/zambia.asp

The last stop was at the government disability entity which is in charge of disability policy and runs "training farms" for people with disabilities. This organization was called Zambian Agency for Persons with Disabilities. This was also interesting as there is such a disconnect between what policy says and what actually exists on the ground. I suppose this is true in any country though it seems so much more profound here in Zambia because there is so much need. Here is their web site: http://www.zapdgov.org/

More later....

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