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Engaging with local leadership

Different types of leaders can be fundamental to shifting social norms, cultural and religious beliefs and myths around disability.

This could include engaging with:

  • political leaders
  • traditional and community leaders and structures
  • faith -based organisations and their religious leaders
  • leadership within organisations of people with disabilities.

This section focuses on the benefits of engaging with actors at a local level who may have power and influence.

As detailed in the core principles, it’s important to understand power dynamics in your target setting.

This approach can help to reduce:

Social stigma.   Structural stigma.

About the four types of stigma

What can organisations or individuals with influence help to achieve?

Support

They can create a supportive environment for challenging stigma.

Respect

They will have credibility, command respect and will be listened to.

Networks

They have wide-ranging relationships and networks, which can be valuable.

Planning

Their knowledge, experience and networks can support planning.

Mobilisation

They can help to mobilise resources within the community.

Sustainability

They can contribute to a more sustainable approach.

How can we engage local leaders?

There are a variety of ways that leaders might be engaged: these will very much depend on context.

One example of good practice is finding ways to harness leaders’ participation early on in the project. This might come from an initial stakeholder analysis.

If you don’t engage with leadership, such as religious leaders, there is also the possibility that they inadvertently perpetuate stigma. There is evidence that their silence on issues of stigma can perpetuate stigmatising beliefs.

I invite inclusion ambassadors to the traditional council meeting, so we can address issues.
Grantee report
Ghana Participation Programme

Case study 1
Harnessing the power of local leaders in Ghana

In the Ghana Participation Programme, faith-based organisations were contacted early on in the programme planning, as well as during implementation. At one site, religious leaders (imams and pastors) had incorporated anti-stigma messaging into their religious guidance and sermons.

Disability champions also worked with local traditional leaders to develop and ratify local disability bylaws. The approach varied across sites: in one region, traditional leaders implemented fines to families and community members that violated disability rights. At a second site, disability champions worked with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to uphold cases of stigma and discrimination.

This video from the programme highlights the need for using an intersectional lens and applying a toolbox of approaches (the video starts playing at 2 minutes 27 seconds).

For more information on engaging with faith-based organisations for behaviour change, see the resources page in this section.

Anyone can get a disability at any time. If it happens to you now, do you want to be called that name that you used to call others?
Imam, Ghana Participation Programme

Case study 2
Leaders in Zambia engage with inclusive education

The ‘Let’s Learn Together’ inclusive education project in Zambia aims to ensure that children with disabilities can not only go to school, but can learn alongside their peers and thrive.

The initiative aims to improve educational opportunities for children and young people with disabilities, from pre-school through to secondary and tertiary education, as well as helping them transition from education to employment.

One component of this multi-faceted project was engagement with religious and traditional healers, illustrated in this video.

For more information on the child-to-child peer approach, see the education approaches page.

Children with disabilities previously were treated as outcast. As a church, we’ve disseminated that they are part of us and it’s important to embrace them.
Pastor Ken Sibale
Chinsali district, Zambia

Case study 3
Engaging with faith-based organisations in Nigeria

In Inclusive Futures’ learning review on stigma, inclusion champions reported that there was a need to strengthen engagement with local religious leaders in Nigeria.

They were seen to have substantial power and reach, were trusted and credible voices, capable of fostering greater acceptance and understanding on disability issues in their communities.

Inclusion champions identified the need to train individuals within religious institutions and traditional structures.

During their engagements, leaders can contribute to discrimination against individuals with disabilities.

To avoid this, there is a need to equip them with knowledge and tools to incorporate advocacy for persons with disabilities into their mandate.

A preacher claimed a child with a disability is not a child of God. It is their duty to educate the public. They must be made more sensitive to it.
Female inclusion champion
Inclusive Futures programme, Nigeria
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