August 31

We met a woman who suffers from epilepsy in a former internally displaced persons camp in Northern Uganda. Through a translator she told us that she cannot go near pregnant women or children. The community fears that her condition is catching. They don't know who might be afflicted next. Some of this fear is genuine, some of it is plainly abusive.

The stigma facing women with disabilities manifests as rape, abuse, neglect, and public ridicule. This combined with poverty, low levels of education, and an HIV epidemic produce scary results. Many disabled children are hidden away by their own families, denied socialization, education, and basic care. Many women with disabilities struggle to take ownership of their own sexual and reproductive health. The human rights of people with disabilities are unfulfilled. The invisibility of this population prevents fundamental change.

Despite these very real challenges, women with disabilities are not devoid of agency. Most of the women we spoke to showed incredible strength in the face of very real adversity.

"Tell us about women with disabilities in your community who are successful," we asked.

Some responses were tentative... a farmer who made a decent living, a member of parliament in a far off land. But some were more concrete... a woman with a successful business selling food, a teacher in a nearby school.

"How did these people attain their success?"

They were given support. They were loved by their families. They risked everything to attend school. They were given a scholarship. They benefited from an NGO project.

The organization I work for is working at the grassroots and national levels for the betterment of women and girls with disabilities in Uganda. They envision a society where the rights of women and girls with disabilities are respected, where girls with disabilities have equal access to education, where the sexual and reproductive health rights of women with disabilities are understood. This organization envisions a world where people with disabilities can live as autonomous members of communities that include, support, and value them as individuals.

To this end, the organization is creating awareness and influencing policy for the direct benefit of people with disabilities in Uganda. They are helping groups of women with disabilities in their villages attain basic human rights. They are transforming the lives of women with disabilities through training, education, health care, and access to law enforcement. They are working toward systemic change, while not ignoring the immediate needs of the population they seek to uplift and empower.

This is a strategy that I greatly admire and strive to achieve in my own life's work.

The last woman we interviewed told us that people with disabilities are being left behind in development. The truth of her words are ringing in my ears.