For 13 years, the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS) has been partnering with Christian Blind Mission (CBM) in implementing Australian Aid (Aus Aid) which has bettered the lives of men, women and children with disabilities in the communities.

The project has been successful in: reducing stereotypes associated with disability; strengthened the capacity of local government units, decentralized local authorities and humanitarian actors to mainstream disability in development and humanitarian response; and putting disability in the public discourse in the region thereby influencing development and humanitarian actors to offer more opportunities for people with disabilities to participate in health, education, livelihood and socio-cultural activities.

In a typical twin track approach, considerable investment made in strengthening the institutional and organizational capacity of the OPD landscape has resulted in the emergence of the CUAPWD as a respectable organization recognized as a legitimate representative of the voice of people with disabilities in all sectors of development. This strategic positioning has seen more people with disabilities exploit opportunities in the wider society.

Advocacy towards councils resulting in the following:

• Adoption of CBID plans as addendums to Council Development Plans and appointment of Disability Focal Points to facilitate the council’s efforts at disability mainstreaming.
• Adoption and promotion of messages against social, exclusion, GBV and child abuse.
• Adoption and promotion of sign language culture in municipalities evident in municipal decisions, training of sign language interpreters to facilitate service delivery for deaf persons, instituting regular sign language lessons for council staff…
• Adoption of principles of universal design in council financed projects as seen in the actions of Wum Council.
• Free production of birth certificates for 6 children with disability to facilitate school enrolment.
• Yearly need assessment and provision of assistive and didactic meterials to chilrden with disabilities on needs bases.
• Inclusive cultural festivals in the Bamenda III munipality provided an opportunity for 34 people with disability to participate in cultural week.
• Adoption of participatory approaches by councils have resulted in regular consultation between Councils and divisional OPDs to inform and ensure the participation of persons with disabilities.

Changes at the level of councils. (Summarily)

10 councils developed and adopted CBID strategies as addendums to their Council Development Plans and appointed Focal Point Persons to ensure the implementation of their plans in consultation with the SEEPD Program and the CUAPWD. This has increased the participation of persons with disabilities indecision making and municipal development. Councils are undertaking needs assessments and setting up databases of people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups in their municipalities. Seven councils have gone a step further to introduce a budget line to address the empowerment needs of persons with disabilities; institute universal design as a condition sine-qua none for the construction of infrastructures funded by the council; institute a fee waiver for all civil weddings involving a person with disability; promote use of community sign language by training interpreters for the councils and promoting sign language training for councils staff – Bamenda III councils is leading in this practice; include persons with disabilities in the social safety net project; and establish essential documents for persons with disabilities.

free of charge; and inclusion of youths with disabilities in holiday job opportunities.

Advocacy towards decentralization support structures/programs let to the following outcomes

• Training of 77 staff involved in the safety net project leading to the inclusion of 122 persons with disabilities in the social safety net project.
• Formalization of an MoU with the Ministry of Social Affairs in 2020 has made it possible for us to import assistive devices duty free, and also to participate in policy dialogue on social inclusion at national level.

Changes at the level of decentralization support structures

Disability mainstreamed in the implementation plan of the Social Safety Net Project; 1.5 million budgeted per council in the Regional and Economic Development Plan of the Northwest region; disability services created in the office of the Public Independent Conciliator; the process for competitive entrance exam conducted by NASLA was reviewed for inclusion following the formalization of an MoU with the CBCHS – this is one of many steps towards organizing inclusive competitive entrance exams.

The Northwest Development Authority (MIDENO) designed and launched a public investment initiative titled “the socio-economic empowerment of persons with disabilities” through which needs assessments was completed for 1164 people with disabilities in the region; Authorities of the Special Fund for Equipment and Inter-municipal Intervention (FEICOM) have approved the inclusion of ramps and lift in the construction of the new FIECOM building in the region. The Northwest Regional Assembly approved the construction of a Regional Rehabilitation Centre in its five years strategic plan and has worked with CBCHS to develop an architectural plan. MoU formalized with the Ministry of Social Affairs in 2020 has ensured duty free importation of assistive devices as well as CBCHS’ participation in policy dialogue on social inclusion at national level.

The launch of an excellence in inclusion award by the CBCHS combined with quarterly assessments is a lever for influencing councils to remain committed to their obligations towards disability mainstreaming.

Unintended outcome

The CBCHS was the only local organization in the consortium of INGOs that successfully advocated for the ratification of the UNCRPD.

Health

Reduction in attitudinal barriers among healthcare providers, adoption of principles of universal design in the provision of services; increased involvement of people with disabilities in planning and implementation of public health campaigns and commemoration of international health days; adoption of the Washington Group Short Set tool for the collection of disability disaggregated data in health service delivery and dissemination of health promotion and prevention messages in accessible format has all contributed to increase the participation of persons with disabilities in public, clinical and rehabilitative health opportunities in the Region. Specialized services such as women reproductive health, NCDs and HIV were intentionally extended to people with disabilities.

Education

Regional education authorities

Partnership with regional delegations for secondary and primary education resulted in: the appointed focal points persons at each delegation; collection of disability disaggregated data in public schools (57 secondary schools, 31 primary schools); assignment of trained data clerks for the management of disability disaggregated statistics at the regional delegations;  authorization for school vision and ear and hearing  screening with a view to improve early identifications and referral; implementation of a strategy for the sustainability of the Regional Inclusive Education Resource Centre at GBHS Bamenda which has seen the creation of a bank account and financial commitment from 3 councils, the city council, Regional Assembly, and  school Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) of functional schools. As of June 2022, 2,800,000XAF (4,268Euros) was contributed for the running of the centre; and one more sign language interpreter was recruited for the centre.

GCE Board

Measures to improve access and participation of candidates with disabilities in the General Certificate of Education Exams conducted by the Ministry of Basic Education and the GCE Board led to the appointment of focal points persons; revision of exam guidelines for inclusion; creation and equipping of 5 special centre; revision of exam registration forms to inform provision of reasonable accommodation measures and the conduct of research to inform the development of a disability inclusion strategy for certificate exams.

University of Bamenda

Capacity building and demonstration of good practices in accessibility to build-up areas has led: to the development and adoption of an accessibility standard by the University of Bamenda to ensure accessibility is reflected in all future construction plans of the university (seen in the introduction of access ramps in the construction of offices and classrooms in the Higher Teachers’ Training College of the University of Bamenda); collection of disability disaggregated data through the student admission portal; adoption of messages promoting disability rights, and denouncing GBV and child abuse; adoption of sign language as a third option in the University Language Centre; putting in place of reasonable accommodation measures for candidates with disabilities participating in competitive entrance exams at the Higher Teacher Training Collage (HTTC)

Unintended outcome

The initiation of education scholarship for blind students, and girls with disabilities.

Humanitarian

11 humanitarian organizations adopted the collection of disability disaggregated data, are upscaling trainings on CBID for their staff and consulting OPDs in the planning and delivery of emergency response.

The reorganization of organizations of persons with disabilities to create a representative OPD network in the Northwest Region has increased the visibility, improved the social standing, recognition and respect of the Coordinating Unit of Associations of Persons with Disabilities (CUAPWD) as a legitimate organization aggregating and articulating the rights of persons with disabilities. This has increased the success of OPD-led advocacy targeting humanitarian and development. This has resulted in but not limited to successful collaborations with WHO regional office, UNHCR, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), International Rescue Committee, local councils, and seats on the National Commission of Human Rights Observatory and the Northwest Observatory for cultural diversity.

To promote inclusion, the CUAPWD in collaboration with World Echo Media Group and Kiki News, introduced an award of excellence to local CBOs mainstreaming disabilities.

At national level, the CUAPWD participated in advocacy that resulted in a prime ministerial decision granting age exemption in public exams or recruitment into the public service for persons living with disabilities. The age extension covers a maximum of 5 years above the age limit fixed for the particular official examination or recruitment exercise the candidate is taking.

Unintended outcome

Sequel to the increase in youths with amputation resulting from the violence of war, the OPDs mobilized and initiated amputee football which has now gained national recognition with the Northwest Amputee football team participating in regional, national, continental and international competition out of local fundraising efforts.

The program has fostered a movement for the promotion of disability mainstreaming through the setting up of the Group for Rehabilitation and Inclusive Development (GRID) Network with 90 (66 of which are non CBCHS staff) members in 7 theme groups (CBID, Clubfoot, Media and disability; Ear and Heating Care, Mental Health, Gender and DID, Disability Inclusive Humanitarian Action).

The adoption of innovative strategies to promote inclusion has positively portrayed people with disability on the one hand, and kept duty bearers and politicians optimally commitment to fostering CBID by giving visibility to any actions/decision to promote social inclusion which they undertake.

Increased awareness on inclusive communication among journalist has resulted in the creation of column and blocks by journalist to promote social inclusion as well as councils have trained the communication staff to report the councils achievements with an eye on inclusion.

Effective Use of social media channels of the CBC Health Services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc has further improve on Program visibility.

Effective participation of persons with disabilities in the production of videos on the rights of persons with disabilities has improved awareness raising that addresses the rights and needs of persons with disabilities.

More on: CBC Health Services’ Services for Persons with Services (SPD)