What will it take to increase civic engagement and leadership roles for women and girls with disabilities in our communities?

Ramadhana is a young, disabled, university student. She recently vied for a leadership position in the University Student Union (Women Students Welfare Association). ‘We must be bold enough to go for these positions,” says Ramadhana, conviction in her voice. While she did not win the position she vied for, Ramadhana mentioned two other roles that she took up at the University, adding that she believes that leadership is not just in positions and titles but in everyday living. 

Ramadhana is one among tens of students that we have engaged with in the past two years in a project where we sought to nurture the leadership skills of young girls and women with disabilities in institutions of learning. Whereas we centered young girls/women with disabilities, our project also engaged their teachers and parents. Considering not just our lived experiences as women with disabilities, we know the key role our families and communities play in how we acquire and exercise leadership.

In a learning event that we held recently, our members - Women Challenged to Challenge, The Federation of Deaf Women Empowerment Network (FEDWEN Kenya), and Rural Women Voices CBO Kajiado who have been leading in the implementing of activities shared their experiences from this piece of work.

The following are some of the answers we documented to our question on what it will take to increase civic engagement and leadership roles for women and girls with disabilities in our communities.

Involvement of family

Parents shared about the challenges they face raising their children with disabilities in communities that are largely inaccessible and where disability carries a lot of stigma. The project worked across three different regional contexts in Kenya, but the parents present shared similar experiences of what it takes to bring up their children and the support they would require. 

One of the common supports for the parents is the existence of parent support groups where they share each other’s experiences and be able to share resources among themselves.  One of the members, Rural Women Voices CBO noticing this gap, brought together parents of children with disabilities as an informal group, although they are in the process of registering themselves as an official group. ‘We value the trainings we receive as parents and caregivers of children with disabilities, and we would like to find ways to support more parents to receive the trainings,” said one parent, a father of a child with a disability.  

To increase civic engagement and leadership roles for women and girls with disabilities in our communities therefore needs to identify and strengthen the critical role that families play in the lives of their children with disabilities. We heard that one of the main reasons for example a parent would prefer to leave their child with disabilities at home (and in extreme cases lock them up), is the reaction of community members. There being a lot of stigma in communities, this presents a barrier as to whether families support their children with disabilities to venture outside of home, but even within home, these attitudes will generally affect how families engage children with disabilities.  

As such, this project advanced work around community support by involving families, teachers, and the broader community to create a supportive environment for children with disabilities in communities, especially as they grow up.

Indeed, from the conversations, we were able to establish that project participants had been supported to have strong networks that involve families, teachers, and peers.

Confidence Building through mentorship 

Lily is one of the young women that has continually engaged within the activities. She recently applied and got invited to an interview by a specialized agency of the United Nations. ‘I remember the first time I joined Dialogues that the Network had organized,” recalled Lily, “I was quite timid, then I attended another and another,” she goes on. “Afterwards I joined a Disability Justice Fellowship, and I could feel my confidence increasing. And now I have just been called for an interview,” said Lily. Her voice says it all. The journey has been worthwhile.  

Building confidence comes out a lot when ideas around leadership are concerned for young women and girls with disabilities. For the young women with disabilities, the ability to speak up and speak out is really critical. This is often negatively affected when there are misconceptions about their capabilities, low expectations on their leadership potential and the potential to be bullied by virtue of their disabilities. 

Young women and girls with disabilities thereby need intentional spaces that mentor them to develop and strengthen their leadership; support them to cultivate self-awareness and inner resilience, as well as spaces to grow their innate leadership talents. 

The program sought therefore to develop leadership capabilities by ensuring that women and girls with disabilities can become voices of change within their communities. All implementing members spoke passionately about the young people with disabilities they were working with and how they were developing confidence to lead change in their communities. One of the members launched a mentorship program that also shows how members are looking at sustainability when it comes to conversations on leadership for young girls and women with disabilities.

Fostering Allyship and solidarity  

The project encouraged allyship between girls with and without disabilities as a way to strengthen collaboration and understanding between girls with and without disabilities. Young male students were also engaged in activities.  One of our members working primarily with Deaf students for example, integrated hearing students as well in project implementation. 

Creating allyship and solidarity across different groups in communities is crucial in supporting civic engagement for communities of women and girls with disabilities. When communities understand the unique barriers that face diverse groups, there is a high likelihood that solidarity will be cultivated to support participation, especially of groups that are more marginalized and facing more barriers to participation.   

Community Resource Mapping 

The project also worked with project participants to offer pathways and resources for them to succeed in their personal and civic lives. To identify and connect project participants with community resources and facilitate peer-to peer connections is also a way to support civic participation of young girls and women with disabilities.

One of the members working with high school students worked with the school administration to invite representatives from higher learning institutions to offer career guidance to the young students. This encouraged the young people with disabilities to start thinking about their future roles outside school.

Looking forward

As the two-year-old project came to a close, we are inspired by the work that we continue to do on nurturing the leadership strengths of young women/girls with disabilities. We believe that to address the underrepresentation of women and girls with disabilities in leadership and governance spaces, much has to happen in their early years of growth, something that we are striving to do.