Tangible First Steps: Inclusion Committees as a Strategy to Create Inclusive Schools in Western Kenya

• In Event: 29.082 - Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: 29.082-10 - Fostering Educational Equality Through Decolonizing Methods and Postcolonial Perspectives

Abstract

This paper provides one example of forming an inclusion committee in Kenya toward the vision of creating inclusive primary school campuses. We suggest inclusion committees as an innovative strategy for raising disability awareness in communities to increase access to education for students with disabilities. Forming the inclusion committee followed a member-driven process for identifying barriers, prioritizing needs within their local context, determining action plans to address these needs within existing community resources, and accessing new resources. Recognizing education as a universal human right this paper works within the tensions that exist between Western constructs of education and how they are applied in post-colonial countries in the global South and addresses implications for under-resourced schools in the global North.

Authors

• Michelle L. Damiani, Hartwick College

• Brent C. Elder, Rowan University

• Theophilus O Okongo