Resource Library

Personal Stories
A smiling woman looks off in the distance. Behind her is a sign that says "We all smile in the same language" with images of children with and without disabilities.

The Value of Student Exchanges to Developing Countries — and the U.S.

When students travel to another country to study as part of an exchange program, the benefits don’t just accrue to the individual student — communities across borders gain from the experience.

USAID funds student exchanges between institutions in developing countries and U.S. colleges and universities. The students who come to the U.S. gain knowledge and skills they can use back home, which in the long run can result in higher employment, enhanced productivity and a stronger economy in their home country.

Tip Sheets
A smiling blind man in a suit holds a cane while greeting a man in a formal suit.

Gain Professional Experience

Professional exchanges, such as internships and fellowships, provide opportunities for international visitors to gain career experience or to share their knowledge or skills while living in the United States. These exchanges can last from a few weeks to a few years. Many people with disabilities have traveled to the U.S. to gain career experience or to share their expertise in a variety of professional fields.

Tip Sheets
Illustrated collage of world landmark postage stamps and luggage tags with text: "Where do US citizens want to go? Where do international visitors to the US come from? Everywhere!" with list of world regions

Infographic: Ask NCDE!

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by Mobility International USA, NCDE is your free resource to start you on your journey. Get to know us!

Tip: Download the accessible infographic under Documents or view on Flickr.

Personal Stories
Lois in foreground seated in audience of African women all wearing colorful dresses

A Young African Leader, Transformed

Lois Auta was already making a difference in the lives of Nigerians with disabilities even before she was selected in 2014 to participate in the inaugural Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). But since returning home from her fellowship, she’s taken her advocacy to a whole new level.

Personal Stories
Magteld smiles and rests her chin on folded hands. Exam chair in background

Propelled to New Professional Heights

Minneapolis winters can be so frigid, even the locals think twice before wandering out. But snow and sub-zero temperatures did nothing to deter Dr. Magteld Smith from making the most of her Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship while placed at the University of Minnesota. Nearly every day she bundled up against weather unlike anything she’d experienced in her native South Africa and trekked to the school’s libraries to study.

Books and Journals
Graphic of two postage stamps depicting African continent and United States

A World Awaits You: Spotlight on Sub-Saharan Africa

Welcome to the online A World Awaits You (AWAY) journal on people with disabilities traveling with a purpose.

We invite you to take a journey with us through this issue of A World Awaits You and to think about how studying, researching, interning or volunteering in Sub-Saharan Africa — or coming from this region as a visitor to the United States — will shape your own contributions.

Personal Stories
People pose for a group photo outside the White House during their tour of the East Wing

Watching History Unfold: My Fulbright Experience in Washington, DC

The most fascinating, and therefore rewarding, part of my U.S. experience was being in Washington, DC during a U.S. presidential election (2004). Through the U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program, I had an opportunity to conduct research at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) during a sabbatical leave from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Best Practices
Ruxandra Radulescu sits at computer with EducationUSA banner behind

EducationUSA Uses Assistive Technology to Increase Access

Two arched windows let light into a new gathering place in the Romanian-U.S. Fulbright Commission and its EducationUSA Advising Center. It’s less about the setting and more about what is inside this corner space that matters – new accessible computer stations.

Computers equipped with screen readers and magnifiers, two large monitors, and a desktop magnifier, which will enable students with vision disabilities to have access to test preparation materials and information about U.S. study options.

Best Practices
Rebecca hugging a Zimbabwean student who is a wheelchair user.

Practice and Partnerships: Zimbabwe to USA

Rebecca Zeigler Mano, EducationUSA Country Coordinator for Zimbabwe, has always worked to make higher education an option for many marginalized communities. She worked for a few years in the U.S. with high achieving, low income students to make sure they knew about access to higher education and scholarship opportunities. This thread continued when Rebecca started working with EducationUSA-Zimbabwe in 2000 and noticed little access for students with disabilities in local universities.

Personal Stories
Portrait of Ekaete

Realizing the Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health

In Nigeria, my culture places so much emphasis on the physical beauty of girls and women. As a polio survivor, I know that this notion causes most women and girls with disabilities to perceive their bodies as being unattractive and unacceptable. In turn, women and girls with disabilities treat their bodies with less value, which of course has serious implications for their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Personal Stories
Two women with their white canesTwo Humphrey recipients, Svetlana and Brigette, with their white canes. .

Forging Ahead: My Road to the Humphrey Fellowship Program

In Siberia, Russia, I teach blind and low vision people how to use a computer, so they can continue with their education. We have many different educational challenges for people with disabilities in my country. I know this situation very well because I have been blind since birth. I studied in a boarding school, and earned two higher education degrees. 

Best Practices
Flowchart of Empower Partnership Model. 19 NGO in-country partners, 19 DPO in-country partners, and 19 U.S. partners formed 19 international teams which resulted in 57 organizations changing communities.

An Innovative New Partnership Model

Empower Partnerships created 19 teams, each a triad:  A U.S. organization matched with two partner organizations from another country, one disability-led and the other committed to disability inclusion.

U.S. representatives first traveled to their partners’ home countries to gain an understanding of disability access and inclusion in their communities.

Best Practices
Team Serbia lined up behind a counter of food

Team Serbia: Tackling Media's Role in Disability Advocacy

Two partners from Serbia and one from the U.S. joined forces to reimagine the use of the media as a platform for disability rights advocacy. Media can be a powerful tool for empowerment. The rapidly changing media landscape gives people with disabilities the tools to tell their stories directly.

“The media have perhaps the most important role in disability advocacy,” said Jelena Jovovic of the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Novi Sad, Serbia. “We receive the majority of our information through the media and, based on this information, we form our attitudes.”

Jelena, along with Mima Ruzicic-Novkovic of Center Upright Living, a Disabled Peoples’ Organization in Novi Sad, and Beth Haller and Rhonda Greenhaw of Towson University’s Department of Mass Communication located in Maryland, USA, met in Serbia for a week to jumpstart their collaborations.

Best Practices
Team Macedonia of seven women gathered around laptop

Partners for Accessible Healthcare in Macedonia

How do you describe a partnership that not only achieves its goals, but transforms the entire way in which each partner works? MIUSA's Empower Partnerships program simply calls it, “Team Macedonia.” With support from the U.S. Department of State, MIUSA brought together organizations from around the world for a new style of collaborative program designed to advance disability rights.

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