GUIDING PRINCIPLES

• Inclusive development makes use of the strengths and potential of ALL members of the communities, as partners and contributors as well as beneficiaries. Include people with disabilities at every level of the program.
  
• Outreach is essential. ALL development programs and projects must target people with disabilities in their outreach strategies.
  
• Universal Design benefits the whole community. Designing all programs from the start to include ALL members of the communities - including people with disabilities - is more efficient and cost-effective than making adaptations later!
  
• Include women and girls with disabilities in outreach, program design and implementation.

HOT TIPS for Including Women with Disabilities in Development!

• Make your own projects accessible
  
  Brilliant Ideas:
  
• Use low-tech, low-cost solutions to reduce accessibility barriers.
  
• Seek out the advice of disabled community leaders and disability-led organizations to find solutions to accessibility problems.
  
• Arrange for your application processes, materials and training programs to be accessible: use sign language interpreters, readers, Braille materials, cassette tapes and other creative arrangements.
  
• Make your meeting places accessible: meet in ground floor rooms, build ramps, add hand-rails to stairways.
  
• Find solutions to transportation barriers: contract with taxis, private drivers, ambulance services, rehabilitation services; offer mobility aides to assist women with disabilities in using inaccessible transportation systems.
  

MORE HOT TIPS for Including Women with Disabilities in Development!

• Go TO women with disabilities
  Brilliant Ideas:
  
• Reach out: invite women with disabilities to your meetings and ask for invitations to their meetings. Ask community members to help you find disabled women. Contact parent groups, health clinics, social centers, schools for disabled children, churches and community programs.
  
• Conduct informational sessions, application processes and training at the places where women with disabilities meet.
  
• Hold meetings of YOUR projects in the places where women with disabilities meet.
  
• Form partnerships with organizations led by women with disabilities.
  
• Incorporate your services into existing projects run by women with disabilities.
  
• Make sure that program information reaches women with disabilities in a format that they can use.
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  Support creative funding approaches to pay for disability related costs
  Brilliant Ideas:
  
• Attach a "conditional grant" to loans for individuals or organizations to purchase equipment or services for accessibility.
  
• Fund proposals which include disability-related items, such as mobility aids, wheelchairs, sign language interpreters or readers, adapted bicycles, ramps for buses or lifts.
  
• Fund business ventures run by women with disabilities with which will empower disabled community members: wheelchair building or crutch-making shops, accessible transportation services.
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  Provide funding and technical support for projects by and for women with disabilities
  Brilliant Ideas:
  
• Microcredit programs run by and for women with disabilities.
  
• Small businesses organized by disability-led organizations.
  
• Literacy, health, peer support, community based rehabilitation, programs led by and for women with disabilities.
  
• Ensure that women and girls with disabilities are included in disability-led projects.
  

MORE HOT TIPS for Including Women with Disabilities in Development!

• Support capacity building for disability-led organizations.
  Brilliant Ideas:
  
• Write letters of introduction, recommendations and support.
  
• Support businesses run by women with disabilities. Contract with them to provide services for your organization.
  
• Provide support, training and access to technology for women with disabilities.
  
• Share your office: mailing or e-mail address, computer, fax machine, copier.
  
• Provide matching funds or seed grants.
  
• Support women with disabilities to take leadership in disability-led organizations.
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  Make your OWN organization inclusive
  Brilliant Ideas:
  
• Collect data about participation of women with disabilities in projects.
  
• Hire qualified women with disabilities as field staff, consultants, trainers, administrators.
  
• Include women with disabilities on community advisory councils and Boards of Directors.
  
• Provide training and resources to headquarters and field staff on disability and inclusive programming.
  
• Seek technical assistance from qualified women with disabilities to assess inclusiveness of policies, staff and programs.
  
  
• Include women with disabilities in global dialogues on development and human rights.
  Brilliant Ideas:
  
• Seek out women with disabilities to contribute their perspectives and concerns on policies regarding human rights, development, and issues of importance to women.
  
• Provide support for women with disabilities to participate in regional and international conferences and policy and decision making meetings.
  
• Facilitate coalition-building between women with disabilities and other disenfranchised women.
  
• Listen to and learn from women with disabilities.
  

MORE HOT TIPS for Including Women with Disabilities in Development!

• Be a mentor
  Brilliant Ideas:
  
• Introduce disabled community leaders to potential funders and partners.
  
• Pass on relevant information, news, announcements.
  
• Take representatives to meetings and conferences.
  
• Listen, advise, and share your experience.
  
• Facilitate opportunities for women and girls with disabilities to have mentors - and to be mentors.