Ten thousand women and men with disabilities living in Kenya and Bangladesh will benefit from a new employment programme led by charity Leonard Cheshire.

The Innovation to Inclusion (i2i) programme has been awarded funding through the Department for International Development’s (DFID) Aid Connect stream. i2i brings together a consortium of partners to ensure persons with disabilities, a critically underutilised talent pool, are actively recruited and retained in meaningful employment in the private sector.

Tiziana Oliva, Executive Director – International at Leonard Cheshire, commented:

Programmes like i2i are essential in bringing together expertise from a diverse group of contributors, who all offer a unique and insightful perspective on the challenges people with disabilities face all over the world. We are pleased that this funding will allow us to test new and innovative approaches to improve the employment landscape in Kenya and Bangladesh, that can then be replicated.

Equal access to decent employment is an absolute necessity for people with disabilities and it’s important that we work together to develop frameworks that can be implemented in low and middle-income countries in order to affect change and create more inclusive societies.

Richard Boden, Senior Policy Advisor at DFID, commented:

We’re very optimistic about the positive differences the project is set to make on the employment opportunities for men and women with disabilities in Kenya and Bangladesh. Insight and learning from the project will no doubt have an impact beyond these two focus countries, broadening the potential to make meaningful change in the wider disability sector.

Image: Global Disability Summit