Celebrating our role in award-winning project
21 February 2024
Our Inclusive Futures project with Sightsavers has been honoured with a prestigious global award for pioneering work in collaborating with organizations of people with disabilities (OPDs).
The Zero Project awards are renowned for recognizing innovative and scalable solutions to disability inclusion worldwide. We are pleased to have been acknowledged as part of a consortium with Sightsavers for our commitment to ensuring the meaningful involvement of OPDs in every stage of our projects’ lifecycle, from design to evaluation.
Under the UK aid-funded Disability Inclusive Development program, Inclusive Futures prioritises the empowerment of OPDs, ensuring their central role in decision-making processes. Partnering with Sightsavers, we have facilitated resource-sharing and expertise exchange to support OPDs effectively, thereby fostering genuine and impactful collaboration.
Through our inclusive education projects, we tackle the barriers that prevent children with disabilities from attending school, including those with multiple and complex disabilities and other learning support needs. Michelle, pictured above, was provided with a wheelchair by Sense International Kenya. She is one of many children who we have supported to learn as part of our Inclusive Futures project.
Richard Mativu, Director of Sense International Kenya said “We are proud to be a member of the Consortium led by Sightsavers where we achieved great milestones in inclusive early childhood education, as well as working with OPDs to identify and support learners with complex disabilities. We are grateful to the Zero Project Awards for recognizing our work.”
Inclusive Futures Programme Director, Johannes Trimmel said, “It means so much to have our work recognised on a global stage by the Zero Project awards. People with disabilities and their representative organisations need to be included in development programmes to shape and transform the societies that we live in. This recognition motivates us to amplify efforts in providing education for children with disabilities.”
Sightsavers won the award in partnership with the International Disability Alliance (IDA) for Inclusive Futures, a consortium of more than 20 organisations (including Sense International) working together to ensure people with disabilities are included in development and humanitarian programmes. Its education projects integrate children with disabilities into mainstream schools in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Tanzania. The programs have resulted in increased enrolment and retention rates of children with disabilities in mainstream schools, so far supporting nearly 1,700 children with disabilities to access education.
To find out more about the project and the work of Inclusive Futures in education, please visit: https://inclusivefutures.org/inclusive-education/