what is disability?
Disability reflects the interaction between a person with impairment or a health condition and the negative barriers of the environment. Negative barriers can be the attitudes and beliefs of people or institutions towards people, or physical barriers that do not allow people with an impairment to access the services available in the same way as those without impairments.
people with disabilities in Tanzania
Disability affects the quality of life of the individual, and seriously jeopardises the livelihood of the whole family and care givers. Approximately four million Tanzanians live with an impairment and nearly half of those are children. People with disabilities in Tanzania are amongst the poorest of the poor.
A large number of disabilities are caused by poverty. Poor nutrition, dangerous working conditions, limited access to vaccination programmes, poor health and maternal care, poor hygiene, bad sanitation and inadequate information about the causes and treatment of impairments are some of the causes. In many cases, disability is preventable.
Just a fraction of people living with a disability in Tanzania have access to comprehensive rehabilitation and appropriate basic services. Services are scarce while costs of transport and existing services are prohibitively high for most people. In addition, people are often unaware of the availability of services.
