Uwezo Youth Empowerment and Save the children prepared a 7 days training on Disability Right Promotion International, the focus was to equip the youth with professional tools to conducts interviews, research, to collect data, and to prepare a professional report that can be used to changes the lives of people with disability, this was the second time this training was happening in Rwanda not because it is not important but because it is hard to find an expert in it who are available to teach these tools, this bring us to thank our trainer Dagnachew WAKENE (Africa Regional Coordinator for a Research project DRPI) who helped us to conduct this training.
DRPI (Disability Right Promotion International) is one of the most advanced tools used worldwide to monitor the human right of people with disabilities, such a tool has been effective and has shown enormous achievement in a different parts of the world. But before we head to its achievements, I believe that we need to know why DRPI was created.
DRPI was created to solve or to fill the gap that was in the research industry, there was so many research about different topics and important issues but after a careful analysis by the UN and different Experts there was not enough research on the human right of people with disability, there were assumptions and proposition that were neither based on facts or well-conducted research’s, to fill this need DRPI was founded by Dr. Bengt Lindqvist ( Special UN Special Rapporteur on disability) and Dr. Marcia Rioux (Graduate Director of the MA and Ph.D. programs in critical disability studies at York University) and it was launched in 2002.
Such System that never stops from getting updated, is utilized to create a holistic Report that base on three different research systems, it provides a full guideline on Systematic research that focus on Legal, laws and rights of people with disability, the second is Media Perspective, how does society perceive people with disability, how does the media describe marginalized people and the third research base on the individual experience of people living with a disability. And after gathering such reports it combines them and provides on full reports that are based on the facts and evidence.
As if that’s it not enough, DRPI goes further and propose solutions, solutions not provided by people who conducted the research but solution provided by people who were interviewed during research, people who live with a disability knows best what they want and need, knows best what solutions that can solve their problems.
Uwezo Youth Empowerment and Save the children Rwanda worked together to bring such an effective system here Rwanda, the goal is simple and clear, to evaluate and assess the living condition of people with disability in Rwanda, together they have invested a lot in a Rwandan youth, whom they have trained with experts. The aim is high, to provide a clear picture of the living standard based on solid evidence. This research will be conducted in different provinces and districts here in Rwanda and making it one of the biggest ever conducted research of this kind in Rwanda. Reports will be released after the research and the advocacy will be enhanced.
