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From Margins to Mainstream

Jobs for women with disabilities in Bangladesh

This article was originally published in the DFID Disability Newsletter and was kindly written by ADD International.

At ADD International we believe inclusion is key. When communities are able to witness people with disabilities growing in confidence and generating an income, attitudes towards disability are challenged and begin to change. Social and physical barriers to the inclusion of disabled people begin to be addressed and more importantly removed; and as this shift occurs, disabled people become more actively involved in all areas of life, which in turn feeds into this positive cycle of change. This cycle is at the core of ADD’s Theory of Change.

If we accept that 1 billion people worldwide are disabled, then attempts to eliminate inequality will never be appropriately addressed until disability inclusion is mainstreamed in all areas of development and we fuel the positive cycle of change described above. 
 
To show you a concrete example, with this video we take you to the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh, which is home to ADD International’s ‘From Margins to Mainstream’ project. During the past 3 years, this project has proven that change happens when disability is mainstreamed and preconceptions are challenged.
 
We reached out to people with disabilities, in particular women, living in poverty. Through a combination of professional training in sewing skills, some seed-money to start small businesses and subsidiary salaries for apprenticeships in garment factories, we reached 700 disabled people by the end of the project.
 
The stories we collected gave us leverage to lobby the private sector in Bangladesh to raise the quota of disabled people employed. As a result, in 2013, the Vice President of the Bangladesh Knitting Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) announced a minimum quota of 5% for disabled people in their workforce. The project ‘From Margin to Mainstream’ won ILO’s good practice contest and featured on MTV. 
 
Mosharraf Hossain,
Director of Policy & Influencing, ADD International

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