Translating COVID-19 Awareness for People with Disabilities
leaving no one behind
How did you learn about the coronavirus? And how did you learn to protect yourself from it? Perhaps someone told you about it. Maybe you heard about COVID-19 on the news or radio. If you’re reading this post, you may have seen a video or read an article.
From social media to texts to radio broadcasts to pamphlets — even loudspeakers paired with health demonstrations — our country office staff and participants of our programme have found many solutions to educate their communities about COVID-19. Here’s one more: sign language.
Although our core programme training in South Sudan is currently suspended, the team in Yei continued supporting the most vulnerable women, including women with disabilities.
The success of the radio broadcasts in South Sudan sparked a collaboration with Disabled Action Group (DAG), a local community-based organisation. DAG approached Women for Women International staff to connect them to community members with visual and hearing impairments so they could learn about the disease and how to protect themselves from it.
The team in South Sudan had recently completed the Disability & Inclusion Workshop at Humanity International and were eager to begin expanding their support. They invited DAG and 28 women, men, girls, and boys with disabilities to the office for a training session.
Everywhere in the world, people with disabilities face discrimination and barriers that prevent them from accessing knowledge and power.
In Yei, most of the school-aged participants of the workshop felt forced to drop out of school – either because their parents would not send them because of their disability or lack of school resources, such as sign language translators.
Because literacy rates can be a challenge for the communities we serve, delivering information about COVID-19 symptoms, how it spreads, behaviours that exacerbate the risk, and prevention must be thoughtful and accessible. Through sessions translated into sign language, role play, physical health demonstrations, and question and answer discussions, members learned about the outbreak and what they could do.
When the session wrapped up, the team in South Sudan had one more task – a home visit to Stella.
Widowed with two daughters, Stella went blind in 2005 at the age of 22. She ingested something poisonous that took her sight. Today she lives with her five-year-old daughter while her eight-year-old daughter resides in a refugee camp in Uganda, with the hope of avoiding the ongoing violence and conflict in South Sudan.
Alone, Stella does everything by herself: chores, farming, and negotiating with neighbors to help sell her produce.
Because Stella also experiences difficulty walking, the team saw the importance of meeting Stella’s needs by literally meeting her where she was. They brought her soap and crucial health information about the COVID-19 so Stella could continue caring for herself and her family.
As they left, Stella expressed appreciation for the visit. Since she had moved from her sister’s home, Women for Women International's visit had been the first of its kind.
Achieving an equitable world where every woman is equal and has power over her life means supporting her needs. We are proud of the South Sudan team’s work to understand women’s individual needs such as disabilities, meet them where they are, and join their journeys of transformation.
Across all of Women for Women International’s country programmes, staff are deepening our work to be more inclusive towards people with disabilities. South Sudan is just one example. They are looking for opportunities to improve programmes and make them more accessible for all women.
With your support, we can reach even more women living in the hardest places on Earth and support them in gaining the skills and tools to overcome obstacles.
Help women respond to covid-19
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2020 was due to be the critical year for women’s rights, with an unprecedented number of global gatherings and political milestones.
COVID-19 RESPONSE
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Women for Women International is responding to the COVID-19 crisis by helping the world's most vulnerable women survive. As the current situation forces many people into isolation, our global community is steadfast in our mission to support women. Across our country programmes, all of our in-person trainings were temporarily suspended to protect the health and safety of women we serve and our staff, and in compliance with government measures.
COVID-19 has served as a reminder that the existing, long-term challenges we face as a global community are exacerbated in times of crisis.