In Kogi State, Nigeria, an Inclusive Futures eye health project is using social behaviour change to tackle stigma and discrimination and encourage people with disabilities to access eye health services.

Through a combination of community awareness raising and training, the project aims to improve the knowledge and understanding of disability of healthcare staff and improve the quality-of-care people with disabilities receive. It is also using communications to challenge misconceptions around the causes of eye health issues, and raise awareness about available treatments and the importance of regular eye examinations amongst people with disabilities.

Yakubu is a wheelchair user from a village in Kogi. In the past, he has had to travel nearly two hours to access healthcare services in the nearest city, Lokoja, and has been refused entry to the transportation he needed to get there due to stigma from drivers and other passengers.

He heard about the inclusive eye health screenings on local radio and was encouraged to attend an eye health check-up for the first time. He said the project is helping to spread the word about having regular eye tests: “Now, we’re all educated. We are being enlightened that: “You should come and do this and know your eye status, whether you have a problem or not.”

In Bangladesh, research carried out under Inclusive Futures looked at negative stereotyping of people with disabilities and how that affects their ability to participate in society and make a living.

The research showed that market employers perceive people with disabilities to be less productive and that community members view disability as a consequence of sinful parents. It also showed that people with disabilities can be seen as a burden by their family members and are mocked or called derogatory names in their communities. Discriminatory behaviour like this can lead to people with disabilities feeling inadequate and withdrawing from society.

In addition to providing skills training to build the confidence of young jobseekers, Inclusive Futures partner, BRAC, is running sessions with family members, communities and market employers to challenge their understanding of disability.

Through involving OPDs and disability inclusion facilitators in the sessions as role models and using a specially designed toolkit which reinforces positive messaging around disability, BRAC aims to tackle the discriminatory attitudes, misconceptions and practices identified in the research.

How effective the campaign is in changing the behaviours of the different groups will be measured in two steps. Firstly, through surveys carried out before and after the campaign to measure whether those who have taken part have greater knowledge and understanding of disability. Whether increased knowledge and awareness results in changes to behaviour will be measured over a longer period.

Learn more

To read more about social behaviour change and how it is being used in Inclusive Futures work, to support disability inclusion in development programmes, download our learning brief.