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The CAHD approach |
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| Our organisation has recognised the difficulty of disabled people to be active in their communities. Community Approaches to Handicap in Development (CAHD) is a concept developed in Bangladesh by the Centre for Disability in Development (CDD) with the collaboration of Handicap International and Christoffel Blindenmission (CBM). This method enables the various organisations involved in development to include disabled people in their activities. - Community: people, their families and the organisations that influence their daily lives
- Approaches to: the two-way, interactive relationship within communities needed to change attitudes so that disabled people will be included and have access to the services that will minimise their disability and maximise their personal development.
- Handicap: not recognising the existence of disabled people, excluding them from society, and not providing services to meet their needs.
- in Development: including disabled people in the continuing processes of increasing personal freedom; and of sharing in a more equitable distribution of the world's resources.
This concept was developed to improve implementation of Community Based Rehabilitation project for disabled persons. It recognises the following three notions as important issues in the development process: - Impairment: anatomical change or deficiencies that results in decreased functional capacity.
- Disability: permanent lack of function (physical, mental, sensory) that results from impairment.
- Handicap: not recognizing the existence of disabled persons, excluding them from society, and not providing services to meet their needs.
| | CAHD is the process to facilitate the inclusion of disability issues in the mainstream development with the main goal to change a handicapping situation into a situation of inclusion for people with disabilities and all other vulnerable groups. People with disabilities play major roles in changing attitudes, advocating for changed policy and new legislation, ensuring program activities are effective and efficient, and finally, and most importantly, as members of the organisations that will implement CAHD. The "hidden dimensions" of disability and its causes are inter-locked in a cycle that creates negative attitudes among people and organisations. These negative attitudes are responsible for poverty and the barriers which result in the isolation, marginalisation and premature death of 2 out of 3 disabled persons. The vision of CAHD is to create changes in attitudes to counter the existence of or to eliminate handicap. | | The CAHD concept is a process of inclusion, using existing development organisations and their ongoing activities as the means to establish CAHD. This means that development organisations need to change their approaches by: - Expanding their existing program activities to include disability issues.
- Following training in order to have a full understanding of the concept to assure a successful implementation of CAHD.·
To achieve this vision, CAHD programs must effectively and efficiently implement activities that will: - Change the attitudes of people and their organisations to create a more equitable sharing of resources for all people, especially those who are disabled.
- Change the social environment and the attitudes of people and their organizations to eliminate the barriers that result in the exclusion of disabled persons and ensure that there is little or no assistance for them.
- Reduce the impact of impairment and disability on individuals and families through prevention of impairment and provision of adequate services.
There are four components of CAHD projects: - Social communication: changing attitudes and providing knowledge about disability related issues to individuals and organisations.
- Inclusion and rights: providing disabled people the equal opportunity to access their rights as citizens and to participate in all of the activities in their families and communities.
- Rehabilitation: minimising the physical or mental difficulties and maximising individual's personal development.
- Management: adapting the structure and systems of an organisation to ensure that the previous three activities can be implemented simultaneously and that they are relevant, efficient and effective.
Handicap International has published a booklet on this strategy and a project, concerning the development of methodological and research tools, is currently run in four countries: Bangladesh, India, Philippines and Nepal. Read Disability in Development - Experiences in Inclusive Practices (2006, 1.58 MB). | | |
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