A voice for disability in Uganda
25 October 2007
For many years in Uganda, the rights of disabled people have been sidelined.
Having a disability has often meant missing out on the quality healthcare and
educational and career opportunities that, in a just society, should be open to
all.
However, in 1987 a major step forward came with the formation of the National
Union of Disabled Persons in Uganda (NUDIPU). Under the slogan “Nothing for us
without us”, NUDIPU has fought to change perceptions and achieve fairer treatment for over 900,000 Ugandans. DFID is currently supporting a three-year NUDIPU campaign to make the country's people and lawmakers pay more attention to
disabled rights.
Spreading the message and pressing for change
Raising awareness is central to NUDIPU's work. Press conferences and TV talk shows provide good platforms to get its message across about the problems faced by disabled Ugandans. The number of callers the talk shows have attracted, and the fact that more media organisations are now reporting on disability, are signs that public interest in this issue has increased significantly, and that the NUDIPU approach gets results.
But NUDIPU's biggest results have been in education. Thanks to its efforts over ten years in pressing the Government for change, the Ugandan Constitution now formally recognises that all people have the right to an education. And schools have taken notice too, with new buildings being designed to be more accessible, staff receiving training in special needs teaching, and the recently created Special Needs Education Department supplying Braille materials. Blind and partially sighted learners have also benefited from the incorporation of sign language into the Constitution as an official language, and its acceptance by schools as a teaching language.
Disabled people in charge of their own futures
NUDIPU is also working hard for disabled people to access loans and other financial services, lobbying microfinance institutions to introduce extra provisions for these groups. This energetic campaigning is helping people and institutions throughout Uganda to see that disability needn't make a person an object of charity, incapable of directing his or her own future and dependent on others for survival.
Margaret Gune, a well-known politician from Eastern Uganda, sums up the NUDIPU philosophy:
“I was determined as a child to succeed in spite of my disability. I am now a community leader and politician defending the rights of both the disabled and able-bodied. Disability to me is a state of mind that can be overcome.”
Keeping up the fight for equal rights
With representation across the country, NUDIPU is one of Uganda's better established civil society organisations. But although it has made some important gains during its history, it still has far to go to achieve its mission. For example, while lobbying is proving effective at the national level, more needs to be done at the district and sub-county levels (where much government and NGO poverty reduction work is currently focussed) to make disabled people's interests heard. It is also crucial that the Government makes funding available for local activities.
Bringing about equality for Uganda's disabled population will involve overturning some long-standing attitudes and behaviours. Those responsible for making and implementing policy need to take a more positive attitude towards disability, while public ignorance of key rights issues still needs to be tackled. In addition, work needs to be done to address the poverty and illiteracy which many disabled people continue to suffer from.
So far DFID funding has given NUDIPU the chance to promote disabled rights to create change - raising awareness among government officials, lobbying members of parliament, making use of national and international laws, targeting the policy-making process, and producing seminars and publications. But if Uganda's disabled are to enjoy better education and financial services, improved healthcare, more employment opportunities and wider access to land and water, there is a need to deliver more changes, across Ugandan society, in the years ahead.
Key facts
- DFID’s support to NUDIPU’s three-year (July 2006- February 2009) human rights advocacy programme is worth £145,000.
- NUDIPU has district union affiliates in 56 districts of Uganda.
- There are councillors representing persons with disability at all local government councils across the country.
- Five members of parliament now represent people with disabilities in the National Legislative Assembly.
- According to the Population and Housing Census 2002, 3.5% of Uganda’s population have a disability.
- Uganda has been involved in the establishment of an Occupational Therapy School in Kampala from 1999 to 2002 and supporting community based rehabilitation through the Disability Desk in the
Ministry of Health.
- Several Acts of Parliament, such as the Local Government Act 1997 and amended Act 2001, Land Act 1998, Traffic and Road Safety Act 1998 and Tertiary and other Universities Act 2000, have disability friendly articles and clauses.
- NUDIPU collaborates with organizations including
Links
- Reducing poverty by tackling social exclusion - DFID policy paper
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