How NGO is Bridging Barriers to Education for Children with Disabilities Through Distribution of Hand Tricycles

Santa Ana College is developing a program that provides opportunities for the physical and social growth of adaptive students. The program trains student aides on how to help those with disabilities and also provides a class for students with disabilities to train with adaptive equipment. On top of improving equal access, the program also strives to provide opportunities for networking between students and aides. Within two years, the program has grown from a four-person class to a full class of 25 students.

The Beautiful Gates Handicapped People Center builds mobility aids like wheelchairs and crutches and distributes them to people with disabilities, particularly those paralyzed by polio. Since forming in 1998, Beautiful Gate has distributed 32,000 wheelchairs and mobility tools.

Telehealth appointments make it easier for people with disabilities to access healthcare, including medication abortions, by allowing those in need to access care from the comfort of their own homes. For many people, this eliminates several access barriers they often face when seeking care. Post-Roe, medication abortion via telehealth visits accounts for 16% of all reported abortions.

The Pad-A-Girl project by the Citizen Participation Advancement and Awareness Initiative (CPAAI) helps those experiencing period poverty, particularly girls in primary and secondary schools and underprivileged women. CPAAI offers washable pads that are good for five years, installed pad banks in area schools and taught the women and girls how to create washable pads themselves. The program launched in 2020 and has since helped more than 7,000 women and girls across 25 schools and communities.

School-based health centers provide free services including flu shots, physicals, contraceptive care and reproductive education, talk therapy and behavioral health care to students. Research has found that these school-based clinics boost vaccination rates, reduce hospital visits, lower rates of teen pregnancy and depression and improve grades and attendance levels, all while reducing disparities and making healthcare more accessible.

Data Lead Africa offers a training program specifically designed to help prepare Deaf people for careers in technology and data analysis. Students are provided laptops with assistive technology and sign language interpreters who facilitate the training.

Students in the UC Berkeley Disability Lab gather to work on projects and inventions aimed at improving accessibility for those living with a disability. The lab also provides students living with disabilities with a sense of community among each other.

A teacher in San Diego took matters into her own hands when she couldn't find a social justice curriculum tailored to students with disabilities. That’s partly why she created what she calls the “Social Justice League,” a group of students at her school who meet weekly by Zoom and discuss a variety of issues, such as Native American land, gender privilege, the representation of disabilities in the media and systemic racism.

The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) mandated public places, businesses, facilities, and schools make accommodations for people with disabilities, including ramps, accessible entrances and bathrooms, and designated parking spaces. The ADA also makes discrimination against people with disabilities illegal, establishes a nationwide communication system for people with speech or hearing impairments, and encourages community-based services over institutionalization. While accessibility and discrimination can still be problems, the ADA has allowed people with disabilities to live independently.

In South Africa, the extreme gap between rich and poor is the root cause of cyclical poverty, and those living in slums face particularly high barriers to education, healthcare, and quality of life. The Ubuntu Education Fund is using a comprehensive approach that includes sustainable investment in community leadership and infrastructure, a cradle-to-career household stability service, and a dexterous, community oriented approach to helping break the cycle of poverty.