Disability and inclusion - Disability Knowledge and Research Programme
Improving access to disability information - project
The 'Improving access to disability information' was a collaborative project between Handicap International, UK (HI) and the Source International Information Centre.
Healthlink Worldwide, HI and the Centre for International Child Health are all partners in Source. The organisations jointly managed the two year project to improve access to and awareness of disability-related information produced by or for people in developing countries.
The project was part of the Disability Knowledge and Research programme and was funded by the Department of International Development (DFID).
The partners researched key disability resources, includiung published and unpublished material from developing countries. Themes covered areas such as human rights, gender, poverty and mainstreaming, as well as planning and management of disability programmes and service delivery relating to children, community-based rehabilitation, mental health and HIV and AIDS.
In response to expressed needs, three hundred of the main key disability related resources were made available as a directory in print, on CD-ROM. The package is accessible both on- and off-line. The printed directory provides a quick reference listing of information resources with clear abstracts and details of distributors, while the CD contains many full-text print documents, as well as links to websites for those who can access the Internet. The content is also reflected in the recently redesigned Source website.
The package comes at a time when disability issues are becoming well-established in development work in many countries. The resource aids the sharing of high quality, appropriate and up-to-date information; vital for practitioners, programme managers, policy makers and other people involved in the disability sector.
Steve Harknett of Disability Development Services in Pursat, Cambodia , said: “This package is one way to get practical and often unpublished materials such as evaluation reports and toolkits to field workers in developing countries. The use of key lists makes it easy to access information, and by limiting each list to just 20 resources to avoid information overload.”
The printed directory and CD-ROM is available free of charge from Source, c/o Institute of Child Health. 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK. Email source@ich.ucl.ac.uk.
The full listing of over 4,000 disability information resources, from which the list of 300 was selected, is available on the Source website, which features a wealth of information relating to the practice, management and communication of health and disability issues in developing countries.