Development and Ability Organization

DAO intends to provide small size loans to persons with disabilities enabling them to support themselves and their families...

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	Development and Ability Organization(DAO) Street 11th on the right House No. 9, Taimani Kabul, Afghanistan. Tel: +93-701-75759 Email:omara_khan@yahoo.com info@daoafghanistan.org

About DAO

The Development and Ability Organization (DAO) was founded in 2004 to develop advocacy and awareness activities and research for people with disability throughout Afghanistan.

The director, Omara Khan, Director, Development and Ability Organization (DAO) graduated from the literature faculty of Nangarhar University. He has long-standing experience in the field of disability beginning in 1991.

Since that time he has worked as literacy/numeracy teacher for persons with disabilities for the Free Welfare Society for Afghan Disabled (FWSAD). He continued his work as the Assistant Executive Director with another disability organization for the past 13 years. After travel to Canada, Germany, USA, Switzerland, Thailand, Kenya and Saudi Arabia to raise funds for the landmine victims and other persons with disabilities and his grDAOation from the Advocacy and Leadership Development training program conducted by Landmine survivors Network in Switzerland and Thailand, he was asked by a group of disabled persons in Kabul to create an organization specifically focusing on initiatives that properly advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities in Afghanistan The organization has an active Board of Directors entirely comprised of people with disability. DAO as the organization of Disabled People (DPo) has developed a very good and suitable training manual for Rights, Disability Awareness and Self Advocacy which can be utilized for the project in national level if the same type of project is expanded and fund is granted for the same.

The goal of DAO is to promote the goals of an inclusive, barrier-free and rights based society for persons with disabilities in Afghanistan. Also it is to protect and promote the rights and dignity of disabled people within the framework of an Afghan Constitution. Accordingly, disabled Afghans are entitled to the enjoyment of the full range of civil and political, and socio-economic and cultural rights declared in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and UN Standard Rules on the Equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities (UNSRPD) and the Afghan constitution.

In the past DAO has received funding from UNICEF and UN University in Japan as well as some material/ logistical support from UNMACA, OMAR and MDC offices in Kabul.

History

Afghanistan continues to be one of the most mine-affected countries in the world. Landmines have killed and maimed more than 200,000 people in Afghanistan during the last 10 years. The current landmine situation in Afghanistan is extremely distressing in which over 750 square kilometers of land is contaminated with landmines or unexploded ordnance (UXO). Every month over 100 people killed or

injured. Approximately 52 percent of mine victims are males of working age. More than 62 percent of them have no formal education. Almost 75 percent of the victims were injured while farming, collecting firewood, tending animals or walking in the mined areas for other economic reasons.

Persons with disabilities including mine victims are among the poorest people of Afghanistan and many were the sole breadwinners of their families. (Please annex 1) These people often experience a loss of the independence and ability to earn a livelihood. Thus while mines impact and other causes of disabilities heavily on the individual, they often have serious repercussions for the victims families. Landmines Survivors and other persons with disabilities desperately need educational and employment opportunities that enable them to contribute to or provide for alienation within the workplace, but also face the current job shortage in Afghanistan that has left all Afghans with limited employment opportunities and choices.

Women with disability also experience reduced opportunity and are often unable considered unable to participate in transitional family tasks thus leading to an even more segregated and diminished role within family, community and Afghan society as a whole. UN statistics show that almost 90 percent of women cannot marry after they are disabled.

These factors combined with the negative social stigma attached to disability in Afghanistan, cause disabled people to be one of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups of society.

The vision of this training was to create a barrier free society for all based on the principles of participation, integration and the equalization of opportunities, defined by the United Nations in their World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons; the Standard Rules for the Equalization of Opportunities for Disabled Persons. This project was also useful to create awareness concerning on going elaboration for the International Convention to Protect and Promote the Rights of Disabled Persons

The purpose of the trainings and awareness creation is to ensure that all persons with disabilities in their communities exercise the same rights and obligations as others through capacity building training and transfer of knowledge through which disabled people and their organizations can play a vital role in solving their own problems and can coordinate their efforts for achieving their due rights through peaceful means. Based on our experienced we have gained during the training workshops we are quite sure that the continuation of such workshops will pave the way where disabled people can live in a society that recognizes and highly values of our own lives and dignity, and constantly enhances the process of full participation for all Afghan people with disabilities.

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