Hesperian Health Guides
Who Should Be Responsible for Disability Prevention?
HealthWiki > Disabled Village Children > Chapter 3: Prevention of Disabilities > Who Should Be Responsible for Disability Prevention
Notice that many of the specific preventive measures we have discussed, just like the more general social measures, depend on increased awareness, community participation, and new ways of looking at things. These changes do not just happen. They require a process of education, organization, and struggle led by those who are most deeply concerned.
Most people without disabilities are not very concerned about disability or trying to prevent it. Often people think, “Oh, that could never happen to me!”—until it does.
Those who are most concerned about disability are usually people with disabilities themselves and their families. Based on this concern, they can become leaders and community educators for disability prevention.
They can do this in an informal, person-to-person way. For example,
Or children with disabilities and families can join together to form prevention campaigns. In one village, mothers put on short plays to inform the whole community about the importance of breast feeding and vaccination. In Project PROJIMO, Mexico, rehabilitation workers with disabilities have helped to vaccinate children in remote mountain villages.
In PART 1 of this book, where we discuss different disabilities, we also include basic information on prevention. We hope that those of you who use this book to work with children with disabilities will also work actively to prevent disability.