COWASH Conducted Disability Mainstreaming TOT
Community-Led Accelerated WASH (COWASH) conducted a disability mainstreaming the first round training of trainers (TOT) in Bishoftu from 16-19 July 2017. The first round TOT workshop brought more than 30 participants that also include a number of persons with disabilities (PwD)) from COWASH five regions.
The training which facilitated by trainers with disabilities was to the raise the awareness of and introduce COWASH Disability Mainstreaming Guideline to the participants. In addition, the TOT workshop was also intended to create a platform where participants contribute to enriching the guideline.
The training was officially opened by Arto Suominen, Chief Technical Advisor of COWASH project, who also proceeded to presenting the achievements of the last two phases of the project, plans and specific features of COWASH III. The current phase that runs out July 2019, in addition to supporting the provision of safe water supply in rural Ethiopia, it is working to make WASH facilities inclusive of PWDs. With objective to ensure sustainability and women empowerment, project has started establishing women-led WASH businesses in COWASH districts.
This training was therefore aimed at rolling out the guideline that guides the implementation of an inclusive design, one of the new features of the phase III. The primarily aim of the first day of the training was to discuss on the general matters related to impairment and disability from international and local context. The second and third-day discussion was focused on elaborating the suggested the ways of including PWDs ability in WASH and COWASH.
Particularly, the issue of how to include PwD in all Community Managed Project (CMP) approach cycles was raised and discussed. It was agreed that all CMP implementation steps from community mobilization to post-implementation monitoring should be inclusive. Besides, consensus was arrived at that for a household to be encompassed in CMP communal water supply, it has to agree to make its latrine inclusive. Including the PwD in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Committees (WASHCOs) was raised and discussed. Even if the inclusion of PwD in the committee fails to materialize due to different reasons, it was agreed that the needs and interests of PwD should be given priority in planning and implementing the WASH facilities in community and institutions.
The fourth and last day focused on discussing and agreeing on the second round regional TOT training in disability mainstreaming in COWASH. It was agreed that the second round regional TOT training will be conducted in last week of September and in Bishoftu. It was also decided to include other key stakeholders such as Bureau of Economic and Finance Development and Technical and Vocational Education Training Agencies.
