Disability is Not Inability: IFP Issue Brief

More than one billion people live with some form of disability, and 80 percent of them in developing countries. As part of its aim to provide higher education opportunities to disadvantaged groups from around the developing world, the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP) provided graduate fellowships to many emerging social justice leaders who have disabilities and/or work in areas of disability rights, advocacy, and service provision.

In the fourth IFP Issue Brief, IFP alumni who work in the disability field were asked a simple question: What challenges do individuals with disabilities face in your country and how are you working to find solutions? This brief shares the stories of alumni disability advocates in five IFP countries: Chile, India, Kenya, Russia, and Uganda. Their responses indicate that regardless of their location or impairment, people with disabilities face similar challenges at the individual, community, and national levels. Beyond these common challenges, IFP alumni are also united by the fact that their fellowship experience gave them new tools and perspectives to promote disability rights, improve services, and advance inclusive policies in the developing world.