African Support Organizations
Please note: This is not an exhaustive list, and will be added to over time. Also, Evenbreak has not vetted these organizations, so this is not an endorsement; just a list of organizations we are aware of. If you have any feedback about these organizations, or know of any that we have missed, please let us know at info@evenbreak.com
SUPPORT ORGANISATIONS IN AFRICA
National Support Organisations
Africa Disability Alliance
Africa Disability Alliance (ADA) is an African knowledge-based agency that works through networks to advocate for the human rights of people with disabilities. ADA also created the Network of African Women with Disabilities (NAWWD), which focuses on advocating for women with disabilities with governments and the U.N. NAWWD also encourages policymakers to establish inclusive laws, have an inclusion representative in the government and provide better reproductive and sexual health services to disabled women in Africa.
https://www.africadisabilityalliance.org/
Disability Africa
Disability Africa focuses on children and youth with disabilities and their families. The organization engages the children through “playschemes;” activities that engage children with disabilities to play and exercise. The organization focuses on play because it is the major field where children with disabilities are normally abused and feel isolated. Playing ends isolation and challenges negative attitudes. Furthermore, it physically and mentally benefits the children involved. These activities are inexpensive but they exemplify how local leaders can and should develop social services. Partnering with local healthcare providers, Disability Africa has provided and promoted medical support and inclusive education to children with disabilities in The Gambia, Zambia, Kenya and Sierra Leone.
https://www.disability-africa.org/
Inclusion International-Africa
Inclusion International has been in Africa for more than 10 years and has offices across the entire continent. Inclusion Africa (IA) is a regional federation of family-based organizations and is one of the largest organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa. The organization’s main objective is to advocate for people with intellectual disabilities and their families. IA provides opportunities and resources to people with disabilities so they can stand up for their inclusion in leadership and employment spaces. These resources include family consultations and self-advocacy teaching.
https://www.inclusionafrica.africa/
East Africa Support Organisations
Able Child Africa
Able Child Africa works with local partners to help children with disabilities in four East African countries — Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The organization notes that the majority of people with disabilities in Africa are children. Moreover, 80% of these children will not reach the age of five. Additionally, those who do survive are four times more likely to be abused and 10 times more likely not to attend school. Able Child Africa focuses on protecting, empowering and educating children with disabilities.
South Africa Support Organizations
Association for Hearing Loss Accessibility and Development (AHLAD)
The Association for Hearing Loss Accessibility & Development is an active South African based association formed with the following Mission: To serve as a Forum for the advancement of all persons with hearing loss so as to enable them to attain their maximum level of independence and integration into the community as well as the prevention of the occurrence of deafness and hearing impairment, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Disabled People South Africa (DPSA)
Disabled People South Africa (DPSA) is a nonprofit and democratic cross-disability body made up of member organisations of disabled people that mobilises and advocate for their rights for attainment of equal opportunity. DPSA is recognised as the national assembly of disabled people by Disabled People International (DPI), which has observer status in the United Nations.
South African Council for the Blind
SANCB is a registered non-profit and public benefit organisation established in 1929 with the core objectives of advocacy and promoting the rights of persons with visual impairments, prevention, inclusion and support. As a South African national representative body for the blind, it offers a supportive, rights driven function to its nearly 80 member member-organisations. The presence of its community work is felt throughout its nine provincial structures in South Africa. SANCB also lays emphasis on the prevention of blindness and in 1944 the Bureau for the Prevention of Blindness was established. Since then, SANCB has grown exponentially, adding Education and Rehabilitation to its portfolio in 1985; the Resource Centre for Assistive Devices and Technology which is now known as the Assistive Technology Centre in 1986 and Entrepreneurial Development and support in 1991.
Ubuntu Centre South Africa
Ubuntu Centre South Africa is registered with the NPO Directorate in the Department of Social Services as a Non Profit Organisation in 2008. Our main activities are working in human rights advocacy and the building of support networks for people with psychosocial disabilities. Ubuntu Centre is the first independent, membership-based Disabled People’s Organisation (DPO), run for and by people with psychosocial disabilities, in South Africa.