The complexity of rural contexts experienced by community disability workers in three southern African countries
Journal Article
2015-06-09
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Authors
Journal Title
African Journal of Disability
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Volume Title
Publisher
AOSIS OpenJournals
Publisher
University of Cape Town
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Faculty
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Abstract
An understanding of rural communities is fundamental to effective community-based
rehabilitation work with persons with disabilities. By removing barriers to community
participation, persons with disabilities are enabled to satisfy their fundamental human needs.
However, insufficient attention has been paid to the challenges that rural community disability
workers (CDWs) face in trying to realise these objectives. This qualitative interpretive study,
involving in-depth interviews with 16 community disability workers in Botswana, Malawi
and South Africa, revealed the complex ways in which poverty, inappropriately used power
and negative attitudes of service providers and communities combine to create formidable
barriers to the inclusion of persons with disabilities in families and rural communities. The
paper highlights the importance of understanding and working with the concept of ‘disability’
from a social justice and development perspective. It stresses that by targeting attitudes,
actions and relationships, community disability workers can bring about social change in the
lives of persons with disabilities and the communities in which they live.
Description
Reference:
Booyens, M, Van Pletzen, E. & Lorenzo, T. (2015). The complexity of rural contexts experienced by community disability workers in three southern African countries. African Journal of Disability, 4(1), Art. #167, 9 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ajod.v4i1.167