Health Manual for Women with Disabilities

Summary: To enable women with disabilities (and the health workers who support them) to better care for their health and to work with others for greater inclusion in health care systems and community life.

Project Description: Creating a health manual that comprehensively addresses the special health needs of women with disabilities in language easily understood by people with varying literacy skills. This manual will address: myths surrounding disability; pregnancy and child-birth; abuse and violence; how to build and maintain wheelchairs, crutches and other mobility aids; strategies for making health care systems more responsive to disabled women; and health issues related to work.

Empowerment of disabled women and girls: We are working with disabled women around the world to collect information about pressing health care issues. These women are also reviewing chapters and providing resources.

Annual budget: $20,000 - 50,000

Project duration: Since 1997

Main funding challenge: We are “falling through the cracks” of preset funding areas. We are creating an international manual, yet writing it in the United States. We are focusing on health, yet from an advocacy perspective. We are advocating social change, yet focusing on individual empowerment.

Contact information:
Jane Maxwell
Mail: Hesperian Foundation, 1919 Addison St, 3rd Floor, Berkeley, CA 94704-1144
Telephone: 510-845-1447
Fax: 510-845-9141
Email: janem@hesperian.org
Website: http://www.hesperian.org