“What has stood out is the resilience of people living with disabilities, who have used their struggles and challenges as an inspiration to not just get by in life, but to become agents of the change that they want to see.”

 

 

In 2018, we trained up a network of community reporters and peer mentors to help set up a wider network of disabled young people to report on the progress of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Kenya, the Philippines and Zambia.

Throughout history, people living with disabilities have been left behind. The reporters used that motivation of ‘‘leaving no one behind’’ to record the daily frustrations faced by young people with disabilities. They also highlighted situations where their rights were not taken into considerations.

The reporters were trained to use a mix of simple and smart mobile devices. They were able to share personal insights in their own words, in their own time, and on their own terms. This generated more powerful and persuasive stories than traditional methods.

For this project, we used community conversations and interviews to find out what people thought about different themes, such as education, health and poverty.

This ‘deep dive’ method works well when there is a big global story but there are groups of people that are not being given the opportunity to join the discussion.

The network of trained community reporters ‘crowdsourced’ insights, which is where they talked to lots of people in their community to gather information from a larger group. Many of these communities lacked mobile connections, language or literacy skills. This meant that their views were heard and there was time to dig deeper into a variety of stories.

The reporters collected hundreds of inspiring and emotional stories that had not been told before. This demonstrated how people with disabilities are often discriminated against and left behind in their communities.

Their reports led to a participatory video series which was published by the Telegraph. The reporters findings were turned into a global report.

In 2018, we trained up a network of community reporters and peer mentors to help set up a wider network of disabled young people to report on the progress of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Kenya, the Philippines and Zambia.

Throughout history, people living with disabilities have been left behind. The reporters used that motivation of ‘‘leaving no one behind’’ to record the daily frustrations faced by young people with disabilities. They also highlighted situations where their rights were not taken into considerations.

The reporters were trained to use a mix of simple and smart mobile devices. They were able to share personal insights in their own words, in their own time, and on their own terms. This generated more powerful and persuasive stories than traditional methods.

For this project, we used community conversations and interviews to find out what people thought about different themes, such as education, health and poverty.

This ‘deep dive’ method works well when there is a big global story but there are groups of people that are not being given the opportunity to join the discussion.

The network of trained community reporters ‘crowdsourced’ insights, which is where they talked to lots of people in their community to gather information from a larger group. Many of these communities lacked mobile connections, language or literacy skills. This meant that their views were heard and there was time to dig deeper into a variety of stories.

The reporters collected hundreds of inspiring and emotional stories that had not been told before. This demonstrated how people with disabilities are often discriminated against and left behind in their communities.

Their reports led to a participatory video series which was published by the Telegraph. The reporters findings were turned into a global report.