Module 1
Activities
Understanding Disability
List of activities:
→Explaining the social model of disability (Sim) – 30 minutes
→Using the DCP –Ann’s story (Disc) – 1 hour
→Experience barriers in your community (Do) – 3 hours
→From disability to impairment (Ind/Disc) – 1 hour
→Guest speaker with disabilities (ILec) – 1 hour
→Language matters (Sim) – 30 minutes
Interactive lectures (ILec)– e.g. power point, guest speakers
Learning games (Game)
Discussion (Disc) – e.g. brainstorming, class discussion, roundtable, small group with report back, case story, pairing,
Individual reflection (Ind)– worksheets, surveys
Simulation (Sim) - Role playing, real-life scenario, panel
Learning by doing (Do)– projects, field visits,
Activity: Explaining the social model of disability(Sim)
Time required: 30 minutes
Learning objectives: To be able to explain the rights-based and social models of disability to people who believe in the charity and medical model of disability.
Materials: paper, pen
Method:
- The trainer explains that: “Most people in society still perceive people with disabilities according to the charity model or the medical model. Very few people have heard about the social model of disability. As social facilitators, an important part of your job is to share a different way of seeing disability with people in the community. Below we will have two role play situations that you will likely be facing in your professional work that we would like to see you address.”
- The trainer asks for 4 volunteers, 2 per role play. The role plays will be done in front of the whole group. The volunteers will each be given 5 minutes to prepare the role-play and how they will act it out. The group will then share their observations and thoughts afterwards.
Role play 1: One person will role play a social facilitator who is meeting with a nurse inthe community who also works with the same children with disabilities the social facilitator issupporting. The nurse will be speaking of her work with the children and how she thinksthey need to have more surgeries done, be given more physiotherapy exercises and howtheir families need to spend more time doing exercises with them. The nurse will also beadvocating that children not go to school until their disability is healed, because the timeas children is precious to fix their bodies. She also believes that a cure needs to be foundfor disabilities. The person role playing the social facilitator will be explaining to thenurse that he/she believes families should spend some time on addressing health needs ofchildren but that most children with disabilities are healthy but that they need to betreated like other children and have the same opportunities as other children, they need tohave the opportunity to have friends and go to school. The social facilitator will also explain that inhis/her experience many disabilities do not change with surgeries/physiotherapy and thatinstead time is lost for the child to have a regular childhood and be with other children.The social facilitator will explain that there will always be people with disabilities insociety and that there always has been, it is not a problem if people can be helped to beincluded and adapt to their environment.
Role play 2:One person will role play a social facilitator who is meeting with the president of a local charity. The president wants to donate some of the money they have this year to buy PWD rice, beans and clothes. The president feels that most PWD are unlucky and beggars and that they need to be helped with some basic food from time to time. The president is meeting with the social facilitator to get help to choose which people to give food too. The person role playing the social facilitator will explain that he has worked with many PWD in the community and that most of them have a lot of pride and want to be able to buy their own food and make their own money. To be able to help them feel pride and not feel like beggars, the social facilitator recommends ways of using the money to be given maybe to fewer people but to have a huge impact on their livelihood. Many PWD want to have loans to improve their businesses or to start a business. The social facilitator says they can help the president identify a few PWD who would really benefit from this small grant to make a long term change in their lives. The social facilitator also explains to the president that if they know of anyone in the community offering jobs and inclusive/open to hiring people with disabilities, that that would be of great help to people.
- The trainer asks participants how they felt about the role plays. Also asks:
- Do you feel you would be able to have the conversations seen in the role plays with people in the community? (e.g. people who think using the charity model or the medical model)
- Do you feel that you understand and believe in the social model enough to be able to explain it to someone else?
- What might be the difficulties in explaining the social model to someone who thinks only in the medical model? ** Some health care workers feel very threatened by other models of disability as they are taught to think that their jobs are the most important in helping people with disabilities instead of understanding that health services is only a very small percentage of what people with disabilities need. When presenting the social model, it is good to acknowledge that health services can be of some benefit to some people with disabilities, but that most people with disabilities need much more than health services or may not need health services at all, inclusion may have a bigger impact on their life.
- What might be the difficulties in explaining the social model to someone who thinks only in the charity model?** Sometimes people who think in terms of charity model like the idea of ‘saving’ someone and that people are small and vulnerable and can be helped. To take responsibility for the fact that we all contribute in making people feel small/vulnerable through exclusion is sometimes hard for people to see. It may help to help the person think of how they would feel if people were giving to them all the time without asking them what they really need? It is also much more difficult and more time consuming to change societies to be inclusive, whereas giving someone something is a quick solution that makes people feel better. You have to help people get over the need to give quick, material solutions to the problems experienced by people with disabilities and focus on how bad attitudes are more harmful to people with disabilities than lack of ‘things’.
Activity: Using the Disability Creation Process–Ann’s story (Disc)
Time required: 1 hour
Learning objectives: To use a story to highlight the difference between an impairment and a disability and how they fit into the DCP model. Also to confirm the strong role played by environmental and personal factors in determining the extent of a disability situation.
Materials: Handout, flip chart for presentation
Method:
- The trainer divides participants into groups of 4 people. Each group will work for 25 minutes on the case story below on Ann and use a flip chart to present the DCP (disability creation process) that represents what Ann is experiencing, and then present to the entire group.
Story of Ann: This is the story of Ann, a 23 year old woman from Zambia. Ann Mweemba uses a wheelchair. She has completed a two-year tailoring course. She knows she was lucky to complete this training. After spending some time at home helping her parents with domestic chores, Ann thought of using their old sewing machine to start her own business. She began by advertising her home-based business, but met with negative attitudes, especially from her parents, because of her disability. However, Ann persisted and eventually people began bringing her sewing. Her business was not profitable because she had a lot of competition from other tailors, but she continued to work hard to earn a living. However, her sewing machine was not adapted to her needs and her old wheelchair made it even more difficult for her to work efficiently. She tried to get a loan from a bank to buy a new better-adapted sewing machine, but she couldn’t get into the building with her wheelchair. After much effort she convinced a friend to help her to get inside, but the bank personnel rejected her request outright because of her impairment, without even trying to gauge her skills in business management, her technical expertise or the collateral guarantee. Despite all her efforts, Ann was forced to give up her dream of becoming financially independent and had to go back to being dependent on her family.
She is now confined to her home and reduced to doing the domestic chores. She often wonders how different her life would have been if she had had access to information on places that help people like her to realise their aspirations. Ann is just a case in point. There are countless Anns in our society, people who have the skills, determination and aspirations to make it on their own, but are unable to do so.
Questions to be answered:
- What are the personal and environmental factors that affect Ann’s life habits/situation?
- What facilitators would have contributed to Ann’s success?
Please use the DCP diagram to explain your interpretation of Ann’s story.
DCP diagram for ANN:
Activity: Experience barriers in your community (Do)
Time required: 3 hours
Learning objectives:To know what it feels like to live in an inaccessible and discriminating world and the emotional, mental and physical strength needed to succeed.
Materials: accessibility checklist handout, wheelchairs, crutches, blind folds and white canes, headphones with music, tape.
Method:
- The trainer will organize to have a few wheelchairs, crutches, blind folds + white canes, headphones with music (simulate hearing impairment), tape (to take a person’s arm - bend elbow to simulate hand amputation).
- The trainer will divide participants into groups of 5 people. 4 people will have to have a different disability and 1 person will be taking notes during this activity, they will all be travelling together. Trainees will be given 2 hours to explore their immediate environment (training compound) and as well move beyond the training area to a public space in the community (shops/market/road) where they will be asked to try to move around. Their job will be the take a note of all the barriers that they experience in getting around. They can even try to take the bus or a taxi or explore how public transportation will work, the more adventurous the group is, the better. The note-taker will write in detail the barriers that the other group members are experiencing, and the group members need to communicate these barriers clearly and well with the note taker. The barriers will be:
- Physical barriers: stairs, small doorways, muddy areas, any physical space that is the trainees are not about to reach (road does not lead), enter (doorways), move within (hallways/room space) and use (table height, toilet, sink, computers).
- Social barriers: negative attitudes trainees feel they may receive from the community if they request help or try to get into a taxi (attitudes of taxi drivers).
- Participants than come back to the training area and each group will share their notes, experiences and feelings.
-What did they learn?
-How did others treat them?
-What did it feel like to move in their community with disabilities?
-Did their level of disability go up or down in different areas?
-Were there areas that were more accessible than others?
- The trainer summarizes, concludes and encourages participants to do this exercise often and in different parts of their working areas to learn about the barriers that exist, and where they could advocate for accessibility.
Activity: From disability to impairment (Ind/Disc)
Time required: 1 hour
Learning objectives:Finding ways to take someone in a situation of disability, remove barriers and offer solutions, to reduce disability as much as possible, so impairment is left.
Materials: red/black pen, handout with blank DCP diagram (next page)
Method:
- The trainer will now ask for participants to actively participate in sharing from their own experiences. Each participant will work individually on describing the life situation of one person with disability they know well and/or have worked with. The person should be in a disabling situation where there are many barriers, so one of the most difficult situations. Each participant will use a DCP diagram to explain the person’s life.
- Afterwards, the trainer will ask participants to work in pairs to develop solutions and ways to remove barriers in each person’s situation. Each person in the pair will share the story and DCP diagram of the PWD they know and together with their partner, they will think of solutions to the life situation of the person (either personal solutions, environmental solutions) that will positively impact their personal project/ADLs. They will write the solutions down in a different color (red pen) on the same DCP diagram.
- Afterwards, the trainer will ask for a few volunteers to share their diagrams with the entire group. Sharing what the current situation is and what the solutions could be to improve the situation.
DCP diagram:
Activity: Guest speaker with disabilities (ILec)
Time required: 1 hour
Learning objectives: To give participants the chance to meet an empowered person with disabilities who has been able to overcome various barriers in their life. To learn about how the person overcame the challenges and get an insightful look at the life of a person with disabilities and their perception of living with disabilities and family/community attitudes
Materials: none
Method: The trainer invites 1 notable person with disabilities who has overcome certain challenges in their life to share their experiences with the group. It can be a woman with disabilities who has overcome stigma around having a family, or someone who has been included in a vocational training centre after some advocacy, or someone who has overcome abuse in their family, and so forth.
Some added hints for finding an appropriate speaker, choose:
- someone who comes from the local community and has a similar socio-economic background
- someone who has a visible disability that everyone can easily understand
- someone who has faced problems and overcome some of them
- someone who is working, going to school or has a family, to share a positive story of person with disabilities.
Do not choose:
- someone you do not know at all
- someone who is too shy to talk or who does not stop talking about themselves.
- someone who speaks very negatively and wants to get charity or make others feel sorry for him/her
The trainer can help the person prepare to tell his/her story to the audience by:
- Meet with him/her at least once before the meeting to discuss about group training.
- Give him/her the time duration for their presentation, so they will know how much to discuss with the group.
Examples of questions the trainer can give the person ahead of time prior to the presentation to help them address key issues:
-What kind of daily problems do you face because of your disability?
-What kind of work do you do? Do you need any special help?
-Where have you gone for help for your disability and did it help? (e.g. traditional healer, hospital)
-What was the most negative reaction you have had from society? What is your advice for the public in interacting with you and other people with disabilities?
-What were the most positive/helpful reactions you have had from the public as a person with disabilities?
-What is your advice to the community to empower people with disabilities?
*The questions above are open-ended and will help guide the person in telling his/her story. Do not ask questions that have only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer or personal questions that will make the person uncomfortable in front of the group. Also, give them the right not to answer certain questions if they do not want to.
Activity: Language matters (Disc):
Time required: 30 minutes
Learning objectives: To identify which local words/language are harmful in representing persons with disabilities and how to develop a new positive language towards persons with disabilities
Materials: flipchart and marker pens.