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Stakeholders Consultation Meeting: : “Ending Stigma and Discrimination, Breaking the Cycle of Poverty and Marginalization of Persons with Disabilities”
A Multicountry Project in Mozambique Namibia Tanzania and Zimbabwe
Teusday 21 September 2021
Background
Persons with disabilities particularly women face enormous attitudinal physical and informational barriers to equal opportunities in the world of training and work The biased sociocultural medical and religious lens provide fertile ground for them to be generally perceived as unproductive and unfit to access education and training and to compete in the labor market thereby perpetuating the cycle of poverty and exclusion
This project funded by the UNPRPD MPTF aims to develop a collective understanding of the stigma and discrimination patterns in Technical and Vocational Education and Training TVET institutions and among employers thereby developing models and tools to fight this widespread phenomenon and foster exchanges of good practices and experiences among the four countries involved and beyond The TVET institutions and learning environments as well as enterprises need to be more inclusive as both are important levers of emancipation
This will be accomplished by the development and testing of three tools in the four participating countries with exchanges of experiences and lessons learnt The tools include i a model of Dialogue Committee between TVET institutions and Employers organizations that should encourage collective understanding of and commitment towards fighting disability stigma and discrimination ii a dedicated Disability Audit tool that will assist TVET institutions and employers in tracking and documenting the stigma and discrimination patterns and the shift in attitudes and perceptions iii practical and userfriendly Guidelines for Reasonable Accommodation in TVET institutions and employers organizations and iv a multicounty platform for exchanges of good practices and mutual learning Particular attention will be paid to shedding light on how the intersectional discrimination between disability gender and poverty influences the generation and perpetuation of stigma and discrimination
Please feel free to engage UNESCO on this important agenda
