Research

The Centre for Disability and Inclusive Development is a joint research initiative between Leonard Cheshire Disability and University College London. The Centre provides research on all our key priority areas – education, livelihoods, health and rehabilitation – and has global expertise in qualitative and quantitative research methods. The centre also specialises in research on post-conflict and emergency situations. For more information on the Research Centre, please click here.

Understanding is the first step towards action

“The premise of our work is that research should have an impact on equity.”
– Dr Maria Kett, Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre

Disability and development practitioners rely on data to inform their work, yet very few statistics about disability in developing countries have been rigorously tested. Accurate, reliable information should be the starting point for building an education system almost from scratch, such as in former conflict zones including Southern Sudan and Sierra Leone.

Jenny Matthews / Leonard Cheshire Disability

For instance in Juba, Southern Sudan, schools are extremely basic – lessons are often held outdoors, with up to 70 children in a class. Working in this difficult context, our researchers carried out a preliminary study of how to measure accurately the number of disabled children and what keeps them outside education. Their work uncovered impressive dedication among some teachers, and they used these findings to help design our new inclusive education programme in the area. We are now training these teachers to train others, a model shown to have worked well in other countries. To enlarge their findings’ impact, the researchers also shared them widely with other organisations in Sudan, including UN agencies and the government.

Academic Links Strengthen Practice

This collaboration has been echoed at Njala University in Sierra Leone, where Dr Kett and local academics ran a pilot project to evaluate access to pre-school education for children with disabilities. Their work confirmed anecdotal evidence that the number of disabled children in pre-school was increasing and now serves as a resource for similar projects in Sierra Leone and other conflict-affected fragile states.

In Zimbabwe, the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) commissioned our research team to evaluate inclusion in their programmes there. Our centre’s unique strength in combining expertise from across the development and academic communities made us particularly suited to this project.

Disasters Do Not Discriminate

Disabled people can be doubly disadvantaged in disasters: after the immediate crisis, they often have trouble accessing aid. We brought this to the world’s attention through a chapter on disability and disasters in a recent World Disaster Report. Published annually by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the book reaches people in 184 countries. Our contribution highlighted how, unless disabled people’s particular needs are considered by those who seek to help, this inequity will continue.