The second roundtable discussion took place in Ahmedabad, India from 24 to 26 February 2005. The forum was organised by the Blind People's Association (BPA) and Healthlink Worldwide.

Over 45 participants attended from across India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Cambodia and Europe. Representatives included disabled people's organisations, government organisations, policy makers, international non-government organisations and other organisations working with disabled people.

The discussions aimed to increase participants understanding of mainstreaming disability and to find ways to successfully implement mainstreaming programmes.

The discussions included;

• The concepts of mainstreaming and inclusion
• Identifying the challenges to mainstreaming
• Defining strategies to overcome the barriers to mainstreaming

A number of presentations were made, providing an opportunity for participants to share experiences and learning from their work. The presentations included;

• Community approaches to disability and development
• The Orissa state disability network
• The World Bank's India disability research
• The work of DFID India

Opening address
The Chief Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities, Dr Uma Tuli opened the roundtable meeting. She spoke of how the last five years had seen a change in the attitude of society towards disability and in particular towards inclusive education. Focusing much of her speech on education, she talked about the improvements being due to a number of factors including;

• The appointment of commissioners for persons with disabilities in each state.
• Raising awareness amongst key stakeholders at a national level, including parents and heads of schools.
• Training for teachers in inclusive education, either physical or by online courses.
• Making it easier for people to obtain disability certificates.

Mainstreaming and inclusion - exploring the concepts
Participants held many views of what mainstreaming and inclusion meant to them. Much debate was generated as to whether mainstreaming was an outcome of the strategy of inclusion, or if mainstreaming was a process that resulted in inclusion, or that perhaps inclusion referred to one person and mainstreaming referred to a whole society.

One participant said: "Inclusion comes from the point of view of exclusion, so surely mainstreaming is the way to bring them back?"

Another comment was that: "Inclusion is the journey with mainstreaming as the ultimate destination"

Further group work on the definition of the two concepts resulted in a decision to put aside the issue and instead work on a series of indicators that could measure the effectiveness of strategies to mainstream or include disabled people in development initiatives.

Barriers to mainstreaming and inclusion
The participants shared their experiences of mainstreaming and inclusion, both personal and in their work. They explored the barriers they faced, which were categorised into six categories, as follows:

• Information and awareness
  - people with disabilities are not aware of their rights
  - there is not enough information about government schemes
  - there is a lack of accurate data on the prevalence of disability
  - there is not enough information on 'how to mainstream
  
• Accessibility
  - physical structures and systems, such as buildings and transport systems
  - access to information, financial resources
  
• Education and employment opportunities
  - lack of vocational training especially in rural areas
  - low enrolment and retention of children with disabilities in schools
  - inadequate skills amongst people with disabilities
  - human resource policies are not inclusive
  - people 'fear' disabled people and will not employ them
  - inappropriate selection criteria (for example in Cambodia selection criteria can prevent people with disabilities from becoming teachers)
  
• Attitudes and culture
  - an overprotective environment discourages independence
  - social acceptance is limited
  - inappropriate representation in the media
  -disabled women are percieved as being 'non-reproductive'
  - low priority given to disability by governments
  - disability is seen as a charity issue, not a rights based issue
  - culture and tradition have a negative view of disability e.g. having a disabled child is seen as a punishment for bad behaviour
  
• Actors and stakeholders (including people with disabilities and DPOs)
  - organisations do not have enough capacity to support mainstreaming strategies
  - not enough exchange between DPOs and development organisations
  - people with disabilities are not in positons of leadership (in mainstream organisations)
  - mainstreaming is not on the agenda of donor organisations
  - mainstream programmes, although planned by donors, are not implemented
  
• Policy
  - legislation is not implemented or enforced
  - legislation is not adequate "lacks teeth" and fails to protect human rights or dignity
  - frequent transfers of concerned officials and implementaters of legislation
  - lack of budget for disability related work in each ministry
  - government departments do not take responsibility for disability
  - policy tends to focus on welfare rather than rights issues
  - lack of understanding and lack of sensitivity among political groups
  - lack of awareness of legislation
  - little involvement of stakeholders in policy design

The roundtable participant's took time to examine different strategies to overcome some of the barriers to mainstreaming and inclusion, their ideas included the following:

1. Lack of information and awareness
One participant said: "We are talking about including disabled people for inclusion!"

• Look at different levels e.g. the individual, the child, the family, the community
• Use participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques to determine the prevalence of disability, and peoples understanding of and sensitivity to the issues. The benefits of using PRAs is that they involve all the stakeholders from individuals and families to governments and city planners). To find out more about PRAs see the Source information website
• Raise awareness using different media strategies - devise activites that focus on specific audiences who respond to activities such as street theatre, puppet shows, folk dance and drama, or specific training guides and manuals or newsletters. Raise awareness with a general audience, for example the film 'Black' in India, which tells the story of a deafblind girl has generated a huge amount of public interest. Producing radio and TV spots, community news, posters and testimonies are all ways of reaching a wider audience.
• Government schemes - DPOs and local communities need to monitor schemes, raise awareness of them and review and offer suggestions back to governments. Alongside this advocating for te inclusion of disability issues in government departments will sensitise personnel and improve services for people with disabilities.

2. Lack of access
One comment from the group was that: "Access is more than constructing a ramp at the entrance to a building.""

Lack of access includes many different areas, such as; physical structures, information, social services, decision-making processes, and rural areas.

Overcoming the barriers to access include:

• Development and implementation of policy - making full accessibility mandatory in all new buildings and transport systems.
• Incorporation of accessibility issues into architecture and engineering courses and training for key people such as architects, builders and academic institutes.
• Specify target dates by which all buildings in a country should be made accessible to ensure universal access becomes a reality.
• Formation of Access Resource Groups to specifically look at the issue of building accessiblity and conduct accessibility audits.
• Advocacy activities and materials for professionals involved in the design of buildings and legislation.

3. Lack of education and employment opportunities
One participant reported: "In India there is a scheme whereby if 5% of a companies employees are people with disabilities the company will get a 5% tax rebate in return."

Strategies for education included:

• Data collection systems to enhance understanding of disability issues and sensitise stakeholders, and to monitor progress of children with disabilities in school.
• Assessment of school text books to ensure they show disability issues in a positive manner.
• Accessible teaching - provision of suitable learning materials and IT equipment and other aids.
• Sign language training - for non-disabled children.
• Sensitisation workshops for parents to look at abilities of children with disabilities.
• Sensitisation training for government staff on education legislation and inclusive education.
• Modification of teacher training to include disability issues and teaching children with disabilities.
• Free or subsidised education for students with disabilities.

Strategies for employment opportunities included:

• Adaption of employment policies and implementation of employment legislation.
• Skills programmes that are appropriate to the market, including entreprenurial training.
• Guidelines for employers on creating accessible and safe workplaces, and information on how to adapt workplaces.
• Provision of accessible transport to and from work.
• Provsion of easy to access finances for people with disabilities who want to run their own business.
• Tax incentives for companies who employ people with disabilities.
• Collection of data and statistics on the employment of people with disabilities, which can be effectively monitored.

4. Attitudes and culture

"Culture reflects the norms and morals of society and these are expressed through attitudes and opinions. Without working on the attitudinal and cultural barriers to mainstreaming none of the other barriers will be addressed."

Strategies included:

• Training programmes for all stakeholders.
• Education on rights and services.
• Cooperation with the media to ensure they show positive images of people with disabilities.
• Invovlement of people with disabilities in awareness raising activities.

As one participant said: "Mazoor sati, mazboor nahis" - "I am disabled, but not helpless."

5. Involvment of actors and stakeholders (including people with disabilities and DPOs)

Stategies included;

• Networking from national to local level, and ensuring information is shared.
• DPOs to represent a unified voice when lobbying governments and service providers.
• Collaboration between the state, service providers, NGOs, and DPOs.
• Document experiences and good practice for all to share.
• Training inititatives for government officials, business leaders and NGOs.
• Directories of disability services.
• Capacity building for people with disabilities to take on lead roles in DPOs and other organisations.

6. Lack of policy and legislation
One of the participants provided this feedback on the session: "Here in India, only two of our state level commissioners for persons with disabilities are disabled themselves. Until we have more people with disabilities in positions of leadership our voice will continue to be ignored... are the state commissioners even aware of their responsibilities?"

Examples of how some of the policy and legislation barriers identified in earlier discussions, have been tackled in different countries included:

• Frequent transfers of concerned officials and implementers of legislation. In India, at the state and union territory level, the administration has a second disability commissioner with an additional role within the administration to ensure information is shared.
• Irregular and infrequent meetings of State Central Committees and State Executive Committees. In Bangladesh, DPOs have addressed this issue in a direct manner. Firstly ministers are invited to be keynote speakers at workshops and seminars. During the minister’s keynote speech disability activists take to the stage and confront the speaker with the facts that meetings which are supposed to happen on a regular basis have not taken place, sometimes for over a year.
• Lack of awareness of legislation amongst members of Central Committees and Executive Committees (at all administrative levels). In India, national level workshops on disability related legislation have been held. Five workshops have been held on employment legislation, five on education and five on non-discrimination. These have filtered disability related legislation down from the national level to the state level.
• Low priority given to disability issues when implementing legislation, even when related to people with disabilities. In India, five national level workshops have been held with government departments, architects and building designers, raising awareness of the legislation and providing training in carrying out accessibility audits. A publication “Design manual for a barrier-free built environment” has also been produced by UNNATI Organisations for Education Development and Handicap International.