Women Entrepreneurs with disAbilities

In 2001 the International Labour Organization working with the Ethiopian Federation of Persons with Disabilities (EFPD) and the Tigray Disabled Veterans Association (TDVA) began a project to "to promote economic empowerment among women with disabilities and women with disabled dependants, by providing training in micro-enterprise skills, arranging access to vocational skills training and credit and supporting the women to start a business activity or develop an existing one." Before they began to develop the curriculum, they wanted to assess the current state of micro-enterprise for women with disabilities. EFDP and TDVA sought out stories from women with disabilities who were already running micro-businesses. The resulting booklet "Doing Business in Addis Ababa: Case Studies of Women Entrepreneurs with Disabilities in Ethiopia" is a fascinating and thorough picture of the challenges and successes of women with disabilities in both urban (Addis Ababa) and rural (Tigray Region) communities.

The booklet is divided into six sections: one each on "women with visual impairments, women with hearing impairments, women with mobility impairments, women who have had leprosy, and mothers of children with learning disabilities." Within each section there is a brief introductory summary followed by 5 case studies.

While nearly all the women were very poor and struggling financially, they had all successfully transitioned from being dependents of other family members to, in nearly all cases, becoming the primary financial support for their extended families. Many of the women in the book were unable to attend school or stay in school and many were illiterate. Yet the women profiled were industrious, patient and had justifiable pride in their work and their ability to support other family members.

Reproduced from http://www.disabilityworld.org/04-05_04/employment/ethiopia.shtml

Modeling Competition For Women With Disabilities

The New York Daily News reports that a new modeling show has come to town, this one called Britain’s Missing Top Model. The U.K. show features models with various disabilities, like missing limbs, partial paralysis, and hearing loss. The show wants to challenge society’s traditional notions of beauty, which sounds great to me, but I also know that none of these women are going to be bigger than a size four, so that’s a standard of beauty no one is really willing to face yet either. Anyway, Marie Claire U.K. editor Marie O’Riordan serves as a judge for Missing Top Model, and says, “I do believe the program could help challenge our attitudes to disability. I want to see the winner shake up the fashion industry. These young women shouldn’t be invisible to the fashion world just because they are disabled.

Originally posted in http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-modeling-competition-for-women-with-disabilities

Toilets: accessibility with dignity

Kymberly Lennon, a wheelchair user from Bangor, has received £2,000 in compensation after she encountered considerable difficulties when visiting the “Jenny Watt’s” pub in Bangor. She found that there was no appropriate disabled toilet facility for female wheelchair users. The male toilets had an accessible toilet, but to use this women with disabilities had to have staff clear the male toilets and wait at the door to ensure that the toilets were not used by male customers until the woman with a disability left. Ms Lennon alleged that this compromised the dignity of women with disabilities in accessing the toilet facilities.

The owners of the premises - Beannchorr Ltd - have undertaken to construct asingle unisex wheelchair accessible toilet on the ground floor which meets buildingregulations standards; and to meet with the Equality Commission to review the progress and completion of the structural alterations. A senior member of staff will also attend disability awareness training provided by the Commission.

( reproduced from http://www.disabilityaction.org/NewsItem.aspx?ID=111)

No Application Form

There is no application form
To be disabled
If there were
I do not imagine myself filling one

It is difficult to live in this world
Some people look at me
As a useless creature
Yet they do not know

They do not know
That they are lost
That I do things they can't

In the streets
Their attention is drawn
They stare
As if I've come from Heaven
Some look with merciful faces
Some with the eyes of ignorance

So if you see a disabled person
Do not laugh
It may happen to you
Because there is no application form

If there were
I do not imagine myself filling one

by Nomathemba Mkandla, Zimbabwe

(From No Application Form: Poems and Stories by
Women with Disabilities from
Southern Africa, ILO, 1993)