Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD)

Disability Mainstreaming & Media Training

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22 November, 2017

From 20th to 22nd November 2017, SAFOD organized three-day Training Workshops for Youths with Disabilities affiliated to the Botswana Federation of the Disabled (BOFOD) on Using Online Media to advance Disability Mainstreaming in Botswana.

The workshops, held in Gaborone, sought to impart skills in using WordPress website, Blog and other social media to advance the disability mainstreaming agenda in Botswana. 

The facilitators from THISABILITY Newspaper were hired to train the targeted youths with disabilities on integrating issues/stories on inclusive education, SRHR, etc., into the whole mainstreaming agenda using the online tools.  

The selected youths with disabilities were empowered with skills on incorporating different aspects of disability rights within the broader realm of disability mainstreaming.

The presentations and plenary discussions focused on writing and publishing the stories/articles, case studies, etc. on the new BOFOD website, on the Blog, plus other social media such as the Facebook page. 

the workshop was part of the “The Organisational Development in Southern Africa Project” funded by Norwegian Federation of Organisations of Disabled People (FFO). Under the Results Framework (2016-2019) of the FFO/SAFOD Agreement, one of the three key targets for 2019 is that Youths in SAFOD affiliates lobby within SAFOD countries for the human rights of young people with disabilities. And the Results Framework identifies communication and advocacy as one of the key areas in which the youths with disabilities require significant capacity building, hence one of the output indicators include “number of SAFOD youths that have been trained on communication and advocacy skills.”

For this reason, the facilitators drilled the selected youths with disabilities in basic WordPress skills; basic concepts of disability mainstreaming; basic writing and journalism tools; just to mention a few