Active participation: Key to Inclusion - Testimonies from humanitarian workers with disabilities

Publications about humanitarian work and disability generally focus on how the exclusion of persons with disabilities from emergency aid increases casualty rates, psychosocial impact, and health issues. Not only are these negative effects directly impacting the individual people, but also they reduce the ability of their immediate families to cope and ultimately impede the recovery of society as a whole. Indeed, all of this is indisputable and the humanitarian community is becoming aware of it.

This document goes one step further, and in doing so it will challenge preconceptions and change attitudes. By reading the firsthand accounts, we hear how persons with disabilities, not through any particular talent or skill but from unique knowledge gained through life experience, are ideally placed to provide insights, ideas and leadership, to supply essential data, and to fill the gaps in humanitarian response that cause this exclusion.