"[Dis]ability and the Global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development." Under this motto a conference was held at the Kenyan Pwani University in Kilifi. The TUM Department of Diversity Sociology under Full Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Wacker, together with staff members of the Kenyan University organized the scientific conference.
"The conference was a very interesting possibility for knowledge exchange in the East African region. At the same time, the event was the end of a project promoted by the German academic exchange service on which we have worked during the past four years together with our partners in Kenya," explains Prof. Wacker. Aside from Full Prof. Wacker, Kathrin Schmidt, Sarah Reker and Yvonne Wechuli were also involved in the organization and presented the results of their research.
Improvement of the life situation for people with impediments
In 2015, the United Nations adopted their "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs). The improvement of the life situation is explicitly concerned with people with impediments in the purposes of an inclusive development.
A possibility for the implementation is the strategy of the Community-based Rehabilitation (CBR) which was already formulated in the 1980s by the World Health Organization (WHO) and has in the meantime developed further into a multisectorial strategy for inclusive development. Through the implementation of CBR activities, the quality of life for people with impediments and their families can be improved.
Hereby, a CBR goal is that people with impediments not only obtain medical support, but additionally acquire an empowerment which is centrally important for equal access to education, a job as well as adequate social benefits and health achievements.
Conference with about 100 participants and 35 presentations
"The conference was concerned with the CBR strategy and the question of how this can be realized with a lasting effect. Hereby, a central theme was selected, for example, involving inclusion in societies which have poorer resource facilities," says Kathrin Schmidt who carried out the German Academic Exchange Service project for the TUM Department of Diversity Sociology. About 100 participants came to Kilifi and followed 35 lectures. "We had a large number in submissions for the conference and the level was all together very high. The conference was a good final point for the project and, at the same time, a starting signal for the conversion of the proposals developed by us," sums up Prof. Wacker.
Development of Three Modules within the Scope of the German Academic Exchange Project
Within the scope of the German Academic Exchange Project, the participants of the TUM Department of Diversity Sociology, together with those from the Pwani University and with the help of the UN CBR Matrix, developed a total of three modules which can be integrated into academic courses of studies. "While CBR has primarily been a strategy oriented for inclusion up to now, we have united the individual CBR components with theoretical concepts, nonetheless without losing sight of how inclusion can succeed in practice," explains Schmidt.
Already during the course of the project, the modules have been controlled together annually by students from the universities both in Germany as well as in Kenya. Thereby, eight students from the TUM School of Sport and Health Sciences flew for their summer semester 2015 to the East African coastal country, while eight Kenyan students came to Germany in the years 2014 and 2016.
Modules available as a download
After the project was finished, the modules were evaluated very positively by the participants of the congress and were officially accredited, soon to be retrievable online, and this even free of charge. "One of our intentions is that we want to improve the access to knowledge and intensify inclusion with a lasting effect. In this way, our contents should be available to other universities, to students as well as to practitioners in this occupational field and to other interested individuals at any time. In this way, the greatest possible impulse can be given for inclusion," says Wacker.
Photos: Conference participants Collaboration between students of the TUM and of Pwani University
To Homepage for the TUM Department of Diversity Sociology
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Wacker
Lehrstuhl Diversitätssoziologie
Georg-Brauchle Ring 60/62
80992 Munich
Tel.: 089 289 24461
Email: Elisabeth.Wacker(at)tum.de
Text: Fabian Kautz
Photos: Lehrstuhl Diversitätssoziologie