The Power of Stories: Advocacy for Access to Education for Youth with Disabilities in Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa

• In Event: Roundtable Group 1
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Afrika SIG Roundtables

Proposal

Youth with disabilities face numerous barriers to accessing education all around the world, and particularly in Africa. Leaving school prematurely can have lifelong repercussions, and can further entrench inequity and cycles of poverty faced by youth with disabilities on the African continent. To understand and then combat educational inequities, we formed a participatory team of youth and academic researchers to explore barriers and facilitators to accessing education for youth with disabilities in Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa. Over the course of three years, we co-created a research agenda, conducted 27 focus groups, and engaged in participatory, cross-country analysis to understand experiences in middle school, high school, university, and for those who never participated in or dropped out of school. Our analysis identified key themes related to educational experiences: social environment, physical environment, and managing health challenges. Our research highlighted the barriers leading to educational inequalities, and facilitators that created necessary access and support systems. To act on findings, we held knowledge mobilization events in each country that elevated the voice of youth with disabilities and gave them a platform to tell their stories of educational success and exclusion directly to policymakers, school authorities, and the media.
In this refereed roundtable presentation, an academic and youth researcher will jointly share the participatory research process and findings, and then will highlight lessons learned and good practices for knowledge mobilization of these research findings to effect meaningful societal change in Africa. We will conclude by highlighting next steps for our team and discussing how we have continued our advocacy, beyond the formal conclusion of the research project.

Authors

• Dureyah Abrahams, University of Cape Town

• Heather Aldersey, Queen's University