Inclusion Works was a project focused on identifying new ways to help people with disabilities get jobs.

Many different organizations worked together to do this. We worked with with businesses, governments, other organizations of people with disabilities (OPDs), and other organizations like Sightsavers.

This project is paid for by the government of the United Kingdom (the UK).

Goals

The Inclusion Works project’s goals were:

  • To help find new ways to support people with disabilities get jobs
  • To get people to work together to do advocacy about including people with disabilities in work
  • To get employers to try new things to make their workplaces more inclusive
  • To train people with disabilities in new skills that will help them get jobs
  • To help organizations led by people with disabilities get stronger 

These goals are important because people with disabilities are much less likely to have a real job for real pay than people without disabilities. This means it is difficult for people with disabilities to support their families, and businesses do not get the benefits of their skills.

Inclusion International worked with 5 of our members in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Bangladesh to help people with intellectual disabilities get jobs.

Activities

We worked with our members to do activities like:

  • The Empower Us team training self-advocates so that they can do advocacy on inclusive employment
  • Self-advocates training businesses about how to include them at work
  • Self-advocates training family members on how their families can support them getting a job
  • Making new toolkits with information for businesses so they can learn about inclusion
  • Working with our members to write a big report about the best ways to help people with intellectual disabilities get jobs.

We have really gained a lot of experience in terms of employment for persons with intellectual disablity. For the advocacy funding for self-advocates we are so excited to host workshops [where] self-advocates will get a platform to express their expectations to employers.”

Aziza Khan, Kenya