UWEZO (which means ‘Ability’ in Swahili) Youth Empowerment is a Disabled Persons Organisation (DPO), established by and for young people with disabilities to take charge of their own lives in Rwanda.
Read moreWe set up a network of 104 young people with disabilities who have been advocating for the inclusion for children with disabilities.
We improved inclusive access to health, hygiene and child protection services for 158 girls with disabilities.
We have supported 874 parents of children with disabilities to better understand and safeguard their children's rights.
Through our work with UWEZO, we are supporting child protection systems to be more sensitive to the needs of children with disabilities, particularly for girls. We are working to ensure that parents of children with disabilities are better supported to prevent abuse through ‘positive parenting’ workshops. We are training young people with disabilities to mentor children with disabilities to inform them of their rights.
The mentors provide mental health and wellbeing support for those children during their home-based mentoring sessions, with their work informing the development of an inclusive mental health guide. We are also undertaking an extensive mapping of existing child protection services and systems in Rwanda, assessing the existing levels of disability inclusion. This will form an evidence base to promote inclusive child protection systems across Rwanda and more widely.
Implemented by Able Child and Uwezo Youth Empowerment, this project looked to innovatively utilise safe WASH to empower girls with disabilities to access mainstream education in Rwanda.
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