Newsletter 26

Governing board

Up until recently AfriNEAD has had a ‘core group’ which actually has always been the governing board for AfriNEAD. Members of the Core Group have been the guiding structure and support for AfriNEAD governance right from the start in 2007, for which we thank everyone who has contributed their time. Going forward we are in the process of drawing up what we have been advised  to call a Governing Board, which is supported by a Governance Document similar to a constitution.  This just  takes AfriNEAD onto a more formal footing. 

AfriNEAD Membership

Currently AfriNEAD does not have a membership fee.  As far back as the 2014 Malawi conference, an idea was mooted that we should have a membership fee, and indeed there were a handful of people who paid R150 towards it.  Then again at the 2017 conference in Ghana, the thought came of putting a portion of money aside from registration fees, but this did not happen as well.  So with the 6^th AfriNEAD conference in December 2020  we have calculated the amount and have earmarked that money for registration fees for 2021 year cycle. We are also aware that not everyone that is part of AfriNEAD attended the conference. This only includes people that attended the conference. This means that there are many people that are left out as they did not attend the conference. The AfriNEAD Secretariat and Governing Board are finalizing a memo that will be circulated after the Governing Board meeting in November giving a way forward for management and payment of membership fees from 2022.

Report on the AJOD

African Journal on Disability is our online journal – meaning that anyone can go online and read any article that is published  www.ajod.org This is a journal started by AfriNEAD, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and Centre for Disability and Rehabilitation Studies (CDR) and as such we are very proud of this achievement.  Anyone wishing to do research on any aspect of Disability might first check online to see if the subject has been covered.

The previous Editor in Chief had been Prof Leslie Swartz who ensured that the journal gets an international recognition, and now this job is in the excellent hands of Dr Charlotte Capri. Trudie Retief is the publishing manager at Oasis, with whom AfriNEAD meets regularly to gain feedback from Trudie and how the journal is doing.

At a recent meeting it was reported that there was a challenge with reviews that were slow in the uptake, and that authors needed reminding to submit their articles. That authors could be asked to provide their articles in a form of an abstract.

A special issue of about 9-16 articles, is always produced following an AfriNEAD conference, which is made up of papers presented at the conference and who have been invited to represent their paper as Articles – soon the special issue from articles from the 6^th AfriNEAD 2020 conference will be published.

Research workshops for Disability Research Country Working Groups (DRCWGs)

AfriNEAD is about research in Africa for people with Disabilities, by people with Disabilities! That is the dream of Prof Gubela Mji the chairperson and the founder of AfriNEAD. However to achieve that dream, her legacy, she first had to create a footprint in Africa! This has taken 15 years, but with the footprint of AfriNEAD now in at least 19 countries across Africa, the most important work of DRCWGs can and has taken off, with lighting speed and DRCWGs have been now started in 11 countries .  The model of DRCWGs, is to bring together researchers, with and without disabilities, to engage with stakeholder on what research is being done in their country and to engage with other – government, policy makers, other NGO’s etc., to make sure the research has a direct effect on the lives of people with Disabilities.

We are very excited because we now have active groups in Uganda,  Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Namibia and hopefully soon the DRC and Cameroon.

So currently the mother body – AfriNEAD- has quarterly meeting of 2 hours long with these groups.  The first hour is spent doing a feedback on what has been done in the previous quarter and then the 2^nd hour is spent presenting a mini workshop.  This first workgroup, Gubela introduced the groups to concepts related to the Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology (GATE) of the 50 minimal Assistive devices recommended by the WHO for PWDs, the second workshop  was the introduction the 12 part Motivational workshop by Musa Zulu.  As a person with a disability, Musa is known for his ‘can do’ attitude and this is going to be an interesting journey with him.

In the October we shall be hearing about the Washington group (WG). The WG on disability statistics promotes and coordinates international cooperation in the area of health statistics focusing on the development of disability measures suitable for census and national surveys. The major objective of the WG is to harmonise disability statistics and provide information on disability that is comparable throughout the whole world.

The workshop is on Wednesday 13^th October and a minimal fee will be asked for registration to the workshop.

So, if you would like to become or start a DRCWGs,  please contact us on afrinead@sun.ac.za for more information.