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- Author or Editor: Benedicte Ingstad x
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is about being disabled and being poor and the social, cultural and political processes that link these two aspects of living. Environmental barriers, limited access to services and discriminatory attitudes and practice are among key elements that drive disabled people into poverty and keep them there. 'Disability and poverty' explores the lived realities of people with disabilities from across the developing world and examines how the coping strategies of individuals and families emerge in different contexts.
This chapter presents the findings of a study that took place from August to November 2005 in Binga District, located in North West Zimbabwe, towards the border of Zambia. As one of the poorest districts in the country, it has been struck especially hard by recent economic developments, and poverty is prevalent. The major aim of the study was to gather knowledge on the situation of rural families with disabled pre-school children in Zimbabwe. The study also gathered information on traditional beliefs about the causes of impairment, as well as on attitudes and behaviour towards children with disabilities in the past and present. Almost all the causes of disability were seen to be present among the Tonga. Some of these were malnutrition, poor child health, poor maternal health, ill-conceived policies, and illnesses such as tuberculosis, malaria, measles, and HIV/AIDS, among others. The two-way causality between disability and poverty was clear.
Disability and poverty, and the relationship between the two, are complex and dynamic phenomena, and thus not easy to grasp in one theoretical model or within one scientific paradigm. Explanations of the disability–poverty circle may be social, structural, political, and cultural. It is interesting that the challenge to most literature on disability and poverty emerges through the voices of the poor and disabled themselves. This book provides an insight into the lives of people with disabilities living in poverty, and the vulnerability implied by living in poverty. Individuals with disabilities have struggled to survive under very difficult conditions, bringing evidence to the fact that they also represent a tremendous resource which can be used to improve the situation for the poorest of the poor. Without this expertise, and without challenging and breaking up established power structures, the fight against poverty will be jeopardised.
This book is about being disabled and being poor and the social, cultural, and political processes that link these two aspects of living in what has been characterised as a ‘vicious circle’. It is also about the strengths that people show when living with disability and being poor: how they try to overcome their problems and make the best out of what little they have. The book aims to provide cross-cultural perspectives on the situation of living with a disability and being poor. This chapter discusses disability and poverty; poverty dimensions such as absolute poverty and relative poverty; the disability concept; the vicious circle of disability and poverty; overcoming poverty for people with disability with opportunity, empowerment, and security; and research on poverty and disability.
This chapter shows a situation in which culture makes the difference in the life situation of poor disabled women and men. It concentrates on data from Yemen, mainly qualitative interviews with 35 individuals and one group interview with young physically disabled girls in an orphanage. The chapter confirms that poverty gives people less access to healthcare and preventive measures, education, and money to buy nutritious food and medicines. Thus poor people are more at risk than others of developing impairments. Similarly, education, social services, and employment are less accessible to a disabled person in Yemen than to those who have full use of their limbs, senses, and intellectual ability. The gender issues of segregation and male dominance play an important role in making girls/women with an impairment more disadvantaged in many ways than boys/men.
People with impairments encounter many barriers in their daily life. This chapter describes the variety of barriers and looks at how the collected sum of many barriers influences access to what is considered essential and indispensable for all humans: healthcare services and education. It describes some of the mechanisms that create and maintain a difficult life in a resource-poor context by describing the particular challenges people living in poverty with disabilities encounter. The chapter also describes some of the given options of coping with these challenges. It argues that a family perspective should direct actions that are implemented in order to reduce barriers, as well as to develop coping strategies.
