Happy International Day of Persons with Disabilities!
> Posted by Center Staff
International Day of Persons with Disabilities is a global occasion to promote awareness and mobilize support for critical issues relating to the inclusion of persons with disabilities (PWD). To mark the day, we wanted to share with you a new Accion video spotlighting the story of Reshma Babu. At five months old, Reshma contracted polio and lost the use of her legs, yet today, she lives independently. That’s partly due to her job at Accion partner Vindhya, where four out of five workers have some kind of disability. Vindhya is a business process outsourcing company that widely employs PWD to deliver high-quality and competitive services to companies spanning multiple sectors, including microfinance. Vindhya exemplifies how inclusion for PWD is a sustainable model for social enterprise at the base of the pyramid.
Along with partnering with Vindhya, here are some of the ways that Accion and CFI are working to achieve disability inclusion:
- Identify and disseminate best practices related to how persons with disabilities are using financial services today.
- Implement the Disability Inclusion Framework at a number of highly respected MFIs. Our first such partnership is in its third year with Fundación Paraguaya.
- Disseminate disability inclusion tools and trainings for MFIs, developed at Fundación Paraguaya, with the support of Handicap International. These resources are open source and now available for all interested parties to download.
- Partner with Micrograam, an NGO with 33 sub-partners, and MFIs in India— Annapurna, Equitas, ESAF, and Grameen Koota—covering five regions with the continued support of v-shesh to deliver CFI’s disability inclusion training to the vast Indian market.
- Develop and share the compelling business case for disability inclusion in mainstream financial services.
- Establish and form strategic partnerships with global disability organizations, including Handicap International and v-shesh to achieve maximum outreach and scale.
- Further collaborate with the Smart Campaign and FI2020 to develop practices and tools to implement the newly incorporated Smart principle on non-discrimination.
- Implement a disability inclusion program with BRAC in Bangladesh and in Nigeria with Accion Microfinance Bank and the Central Bank.
- Look for innovative ways to include persons with psychosocial disabilities.
For more on financial inclusion of persons with disabilities, and our work, click here.
Have you read?
Disability Inclusion, in Ecuador and Around the World: An Interview with Larry Reed
13,000 Persons with Disabilities (and Counting) Receive Financial Access in India
On Disability Benefits, Rand Paul Has a Point