Dark & Light Blind Care has published a new study called: Visions on Mainstreaming Disability in Development. It was written by Vera Hendriks, who currently is working as an intern for the Mainstreaming Disability Programme of Dark & Light.

The study is about the strengths and weaknesses of mainstreaming of disability, which means taking into account the wishes and needs of people with a disability in regular development programmes. Also, it deals with adapting specific disability-oriented programmes to ensure that they will start to focus more on the ‘regular’ outside world, and in this way will raise awareness with non-disabled people about the ability of people with an impairment to participate in society.

Mainstreaming and inclusion are terms which occur more and more in the literature and in development programmes. It is about the acceptance of impairments by society, and about the ‘normalness’ of making development programmes and public services accessible to people with disabilities. At Dark & Light, we are currently working on assessing our own projects and on looking at how our partners themselves can take care that their target group can integrate with the community they live in, are educated in and work in. A good example of such an inclusive programme is the Inclusive Education Programme of CDD Bangladesh. Recently, we also held a partner consultation to talk about this subject with partner organisations from various countries.

The analysis and recommendations in this paper are meant to support this initiative, and to provide input for policy and strategy of Dark & Light in the upcoming years.

If you have any questions and/ or suggestions about this study, please do not hesitate to contact Vera Hendriks, email address v.hendriks@darkandlight.org