The Disability KaR e-forum has been organised as part of the roundtable programme. It started in October 2004 and had three phases of activity. The three phases coincided with the three roundtables and were used to generate discussion on the following themes:

• Disability, poverty and the Millennium Development Goals, November 2004
• Mainstreaming disability, February 2005
• Inclusive Education, May 2005

The discussions ran for four weeks leading up to each roundtable event and for four weeks after the event. Local moderators, who were experts in their fields were appointed to ensure the discussions remained relevant to the issues being discussed and the region.

They were:

• AK Dube, Samaita Associates, South Africa
• Pramod Gupta, Blind Peoples Association, India
• Tom Russell (with the support of the education team), Disability Action Council, Cambodia

Healthlink Worldwide worked with the moderator and provided technical support and advice on discussion themes and postings. Each moderator attended the roundtable and presented on the e-forum findings and reported back to the e-forum group during and after the roundtable.

The e-forum has been useful in a number of ways;

• Providing a way for people to engage with the roundtable who would otherwise be unable to attend
• Sharing resources and research carried out by members of the e-forum
• Providing an opportunity for people to network and share experiences
• Identifying participants to speak at each of the roundtables
• Generating topics of discussion for inclusion at the roundtable
• Raising issues for the roundtables e.g. gender and disability, mental disabilities

During the Disability KaR programme the number of members grew to over 160 people from developing and developed countries, including DPOs, government organisations, agencies, NGOs and disabled people.

Although the programme has now finished the e-forum is still used for discussion of topics of interest to the group.

To join the group or to view the discussions please visit the e-forum website at:
www.dgroups.org/groups/
disabilityKaR

For more information on each of the roundtables and the activities that took place, please use the menu on the left-hand side of this page.