Marking the International Day of Persons with Disabilities
The 3rd December marks the United Nations’ International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD), a day dedicating to promoting an understanding of disability issues and mobilising support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities.
This year’s theme was ‘Inclusion Matters: access and empowerment for people of all abilities’. Given SHARE’s commitment to ensuring equity of access to sanitation and hygiene globally, this was a particularly great opportunity for us to share our Undoing Inequity research with a wider global audience.
Getting social
As well as disseminating our varied outputs from this project through Twitter, using the #IDPD2015 hashtag, SHARE partner and project-lead WaterAid participated in a BOND and Thomas Reuters Foundation convened hour-long Twitter chat. More than 1000 Tweets were sent from more than 500 tweeters, and several of those related to our Undoing Inequity project, including this lovely compliment about WaterAid’s continued dedication to mainstreaming disability in WASH. You can read the rest of the Tweets in this Storify.
Project Principle Investigator, Jane Wilbur, also shared the findings of the Undoing Inequity project in her guest-blog for the BOND website.
Government liaison
Lessons learned from and the publications relating to the Undoing Inequity project also received air time at a DFID-hosted multi-stakeholder seminar on disability-inclusive development at which Jane was invited to present. She also reflected on WaterAid’s experiences of a non-disability focused organisation working to mainstream disability and, as a member of the BOND Disability and Development Group, attended the relaunch of DFID’s Disability Framework at the Houses of Parliament. The Group has been assisting DFID to revise this ‘living document’ and has been working with them to develop associated action plans, one of which will focus on WASH.
It is excellent to see SHARE supported research stimulating and feeding into such important conversations. Keep up the good work Jane!