Just As I am (JAI)

With a bachelors degree in Media Technology, a certificate in leadership and entrepreneurship Joseph is a proud winner of the African Union Humanitarian Innovation Challenge 2019 and a grant winner @Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program 2018. He is an entrepreneur, advocate for youth empowerment, business coach and consultant. He is founder/Director of WeKonnect a platform that connects refugees to relevant information and services in Uganda, founder @ExpertBoda, and Youth Contact Association working to transform and empower African youth through social economic initiatives.

As an advocate for youth social empowerment, he strongly supports youth entrepreneurial growth and development initiatives and has experience in scheduling programs and projects that promote community engagement and urge positive participation to elevate the status of both young and old, has  participated in various community solution programs and activities through which he has developed strong interpersonal communication skills and the ability to work in multicultural environments.

In Uganda, community leaders have a strong influence on community beliefs and practices. Although some support and advocate for people&children with disabilities, many conduct harmful “healing” practices and share inaccurate information that encourages discrimination, neglect, abuse or even murder. Many of these leaders also encourage families to pursue other remedies instead of medical care, leading to increased morbidity and mortality among children with disabilities.

JAI intends to develop workshops that train community leaders on disability definitions, causes and treatments, needs and rights of children/people with disabilities.

In year1, 250+ community leaders will complete JAI's disability training and use acquired knowledge and skills to reduce stigma and replace harmful practices (i.e. burning, cutting, exorcisms) with effective care, counsel and referrals. These changes will improve the health, education access, and social inclusion of persons-with-disability. We will then disseminate our refined model to partners beyond Uganda. 

One billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, experience some form of disability especially in developing countries (World Bank). One-fifth of the estimated global total, or between 110 million and 190 million people, experience significant disabilities. Persons with disabilities are more likely to experience adverse socioeconomic outcomes than persons without disabilities, such as less education, poorer health outcomes, lower levels of employment, and higher poverty rates and it even gets worse for children who are often neglected, abused, excluded from community life or even murdered. Current Situation According to the 2002 Population and Housing Census, at least 4 out of every 25, or 16 per cent of the population, are disabled.

Barriers to full social and economic inclusion of persons with disabilities include strong influence on community beliefs and practices,gaps in service delivery, and discriminatory prejudice and stigma in society.

Poverty may increase the risk of disability through malnutrition, inadequate access to education and health care, unsafe working conditions, a polluted environment, and lack of access to safe water and sanitation. Disability may increase the risk of poverty, through lack of employment and education opportunities, lower wages, and increased cost of living with a disability.

JAI is developing community workshops that train community leaders on disability definitions, causes and treatments and the needs and rights children with disabilities. Although the workshops are tailored for each group, all 3 training include participatory presentations and discussions about disability, with an emphasis on global legislation (i.e., the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) and local laws (i.e., national and county-level Persons with Disability Acts) to help participants understand their legal mandate to protect the children with disabilities. 

Our workshops feature testimonials and interactions from people with disabilities from within the participants’ communities to help convey the reality, urgency and proximity of disability justice needs. At the end of the training, our facilitators help participants develop Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound action plans that guide them in replacing harmful beliefs and practices with scientifically accurate information and appropriate care and referrals for persons-with-disabilities (adults&children). 

In the months following each workshop, we contact group representatives from each training to support action plan implementation and long-term sustainability of safe, inclusive practices. We are also exploring income-generating training for community leaders who may experience reduced income when they refer those with disabilities to medical clinics for care.

JAI advocacy activities are aimed at helping thousands of persons with disabilities with a major focus on children to access the nutrition, education, medical care, and legal rights they deserve. people and children who are healthy and fully included in all aspects of their communities also become a source of advocacy-they show others what is possible with appropriate support and adequate resources. 

Through interviews with beneficiaries, facilitators and advisors inform our decisions and program activities. We are working to feature 1) disability testimonies and data from the participants’ communities to personalize content and convey urgency 2) information on disability prevention during pregnancy/labor and through early identification/referrals to save lives and reduce costs 3) CPR training to affirm and improve participants’ skills 4) use of visual aids and videos to support scientific explanations. 

500+ community leaders will complete JAI's disability training and use the knowledge and skills gained to reduce stigma and replace harmful practices (i.e., burning, cutting, exorcisms) with effective care, counseling and referrals. 

In addition to raise awareness and reducing negative stigma, our advocacy programs inspire local leaders to help concerned persons' access to high-quality medical care, equipment and supplies they need to reach optimal health and wellness.

JAI strives to design an inclusive community that ensures that even those who normally and traditionally are left behind due to their seen and unseen disabilities are heard and able to have access to the available social economic opportunities e.g. health services, quality education, and safe environments to live and prosper. In order for this to happen, there must be a global effort to increase understanding and practical pathways around disability and inclusion, a principle that we strongly believe that is embraced in this Elevate Prize. This project comes to play a part in building that inclusive world for all.

This idea is born out of a sad story that one of the team members personally experienced when his family disowned him because of his deformed face and with 3fingures on each hand. However, there are evident social economic evils that we see everyday in our communities. In paacwa one of Uganda's urban slums, a woman was arrested by police for dumping their newly born baby in the toilet. When asked why she had to do such inhuman act, she said that she couldn't stand a chance looking at a deformed child because that wasn't what she had expected. Such heartbreaking stories that are very common every have paved way for us to want to change people's mindet about disability not being inability. In Uganda and Africa, many women kill and dump babies on a daily basis, those that get a chance to grow are neglected and are not countered among the family members. This causes a permanent emotional and psychological mental trauma that will last forever. 

Bringing all key players together to chat new means and ways that can best be observed to save and transform lives for persons with disabilities became our vision.

We are concerned about the social and economic negligence including the inequalities that currently prevail in our societies against people with disabilities. Poverty and disability are often linked by a cycle of hardship. People with disabilities for decades have limited access to health, education, livelihood opportunities, fair wages, and community support, preventing their full participation in society. Effects from the stigma, discrimination, and costs for rehabilitation or care affect not only the individuals, but also their families and children. 

While great progress has been made in some areas, there remains a lack of global commitment and investment to ensure that people with disabilities can live independently and with dignity. Their perspectives are often not heard by governments and other decision makers. 

Therefore the need for these people's voices to be heard, the outcry for souls that have been killed at infancy, the many innocent babies killed because of their deformities yet they never had a choice about their looks is what we are passionate about and it is this project's core mission to amplify their voices but also devise pathways for their social economic growth and self-sustainability.

We are a team of 4 project team leaders with long-term experience in project planing and management. One of the team members is the current director of child restoration outreach center that rehabilitates children off the streets and turns them into respectable citizens in society. The rest of the team members also have their roots in Child protection services and human rights activists. Additionally, we are currently in talks with the Ugandan government specifically the  National Union of Women With Disabilities of Uganda www.nuwoduganda.org/, National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda https://nudipu.org/, The Department for Disabled Persons under the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. We are privileged to inform you that all the above key service players have pledged their unwavering support to this project. The implementation and project management will be co-managed by the project team along with 3 specialist officers right from the the Department for Disabled Persons under the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development.

With all these heads put together, we can profoundly confess that we stand on a higher ground to run and implement this project in order to achieve its desired vision and mission.

At the beginning of this idea, as a team leader I never had any finances whatsoever to run the project. All I had was the passion to solve a community need with-no idea where I would get funds. Some of my teammates gaveup. From a team of six, we remained three members. I kept encouraging them that somehow things would get better. Worst of all, all the fundraising proposals and campaigns we carried out never yielded any money for us. There many times we didn't even have money for a bottle of water during our meetings. Even though I seemed like I had totally failed, I never gave up till to date. Surprising last December, we submitted our proposal for a small grant ($5000) and for the first time we got it after several in vain. This grant proved to me that indeed patience pays even though it's painful. The colleagues who left are now requesting for a comeback, the project's future is now more vivid. This taught me that hard times will always come to the extent that those you rely on might leave you, but giving up should never be the alternative rather perseverance, dedication and focus.

After some of our project teammates leaving due to lack of finances to run the project, the three of us who remained from the six had to comeup with new ways and approaches if we were to move the project forward. As a team leader, everytime we met I encouraged my teammates not to give-up on the vision, I started to lobby for funds both from private and public entities. There are many times I sacrificed my small money for lunch in order to facilitate our meetings. Even when I didn't know how exactly we would make it through, I had the hope and the faith that somehow our sunshine would eventually come and that's the message I daily sold to my two colleagues who remained with me. After failing several times to raise funds, last year we secured the very first grant of $5000 from the Tony Elumelu Foundation. Today as we speak the government of Uganda has pledged to fully partner and support our activities and is giving us three specialists in the field of strategic planning and management of disabilities among children and adults. We have also engaged UNICEF and have also pledged their support.

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Although much research has been conducted on community leaders' social

influence and many programs have engaged such leaders in advocacy and
education initiatives, JAI is the first to train these leaders on
the biological, legal, and social factors that impact adults and children with
disability and call on them to take the lead in improving the disability
landscape in their communities. To do this, we not only correct these
leaders' misconceptions and harmful practices but also celebrate their
accurate knowledge and useful practices. The program does not exist in
isolation but is part of a broad spectrum of community-based
interventions we implement to gradually shift disability norms among
chiefs, teachers, parents, women's groups and nonprofits. JAI's
advocacy programs have been developed and refined through
continuous evaluation and testing and with consistent, impartial
financial support from philanthropists and private foundations around.

-This being a new project, we are still in the early stage of the project development even though we have been able to indirectly impact close to 100+ beneficiaries especially children with disabilities who now can access school, healthcare and are fully supported by their families.

- By 2022, we aim to improve medical outcomes among 25,000 children with
disabilities by educating and empowering 15,000 community leaders
(5,000 directly in Uganda and 10,000 through global partnerships) to
effectively advise, treat and refer families impacted by disability.

-In five years, we aim to have improved the healthcare outcomes, educational opportunities and social welfare of 100,000 persons with disabilities directly and equip 20,000 community leaders to effective advise, treat, and refer families impacted by persons with disabilities.