Community Work with Disabled Committee

Background

Traditionally people with disabilities in Cambodia have often been segregated by their families, their communities, and society. They generally have few rights or opportunities to participate in mainstream development, are being discriminated against, and are very poor.

Many service agencies tend to work in and near urban centres. This prevents many people with disabilities living in rural areas from benefiting from programmes.

Some problems related to Community Work with Disabled People (CWD) have been identified as follows:

Disability awareness is very poor among people living in communities with disabled people.
Most people with disabilities have very undeveloped capacity and lack self-confidence.
People with disabilities are excluded from mainstream development.
People with disabilities are among the poorest of the poor - they have few opportunities for employment, have little dignity and are largely dependent on others for survival.
There is little or no information about services and few or no links between people with disabilities and agencies (governmental and non-governmental).
Mainstream income generation projects usually fail to include people with disabilities.

Formation of the CWD Committee

The predecessor of the DAC’s Community Work with Disabled Committee began meeting as early as 1995 as part of the MSALVA Task Force. Its main function was as a forum for representatives of various member organisations to exchange information on their programmes and activities.

In late 1998 DAC Secretariat staff joined the committee to facilitate its work, and it became a Technical Committee of the DAC. The DAC considers Community Work with Disabled People a priority sector, and is greatly concerned by the poverty of disabled people living in their communities.

The CWD Committee comprises representatives from the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labour, Vocational Training and Youth Rehabilitation (MOSALVY), and international and national NGOs who are working for the well-being of people with disabilities at the community level.

Purposes and Functions of the CWD Committee

In 1999 the committee reformulated its Terms of Reference. While continuing to share experiences of the different agencies in CWD, committee members also developed an Action Plan for the sector which fed into the national Cambodian Plan of Action. Implementation of the sector Action Plan occurs through the work of agencies represented on the committee, as well as other relevant bodies.

The purposes of the CWD Committee are:

To develop and update the Action Plan for the CWD sector.
To monitor the progress of organisations in the CWD sector in implementing the Action Plan.
To facilitate cooperation between CWD and MOSALVY and other relevant agencies.
To share information and ideas amongst CWD members.
To promote more employment of people with disabilities in organisations of the CWD sector.

Information, network and referral services are the main work of the CWD Committee. The committee collects information on the NGOs who are providing services for disabled people, and members also share information and refer clients to each other or to other services. As part of capacity building of its members, organisation representatives are given the opportunity to attend national and international workshops. Apart from this, the committee works with other sectors such as Human Rights organisations to raise their awareness about mainstreaming; to explore ways in which people with disabilities at community level may be integrated into mainstream development; and to promote equal rights and opportunities for people with disabilities. The committee also works with appropriate partners in the sectors of Health, Education, Agriculture, and Social Affairs to change discriminatory attitudes and behaviour towards disabled people.

Member Organisations’ CWD Work

The work of member agencies of the CWD Committee shares common elements:

Raising awareness on disability issues at individual, family, and community level.
Promoting the inclusion of people with disabilities within the community.
Increasing the self-esteem and capabilities of disabled people.
Providing support to families of people with disabilities.
Referring on and making links between disabled people and agencies (governmental and non-governmental).
Enhancing opportunities for employment.
Assisting income generation by individual people with disabilities as well as their families.

The DAC believes that through the work of the Community Work with Disabled Committee, people with disabilities living in the community are gaining more confidence, and more rights and opportunities to participate in social, cultural and economic activities and rehabilitation.

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