AREA OF EXPERTISE
Education and protection
AREA OF EXPERTISE
Education and protection
FUNDING
Present in the camps since 2001, TGH has acquired a good knowledge of the specific context of this area and of the living conditions of these refugee populations, including persons with disabilities.
A relative needs assessment is performed by TGH teams on a regular basis during the implementation of projects in the camps through post-distribution programme monitoring and regular meetings with Saharawi authorities.
Recent studies (census conducted jointly by the Saharawi State Secretariat for Social Assistance and Advancement of Women and TGH, surveys, etc.) highlighted extremely precarious conditions, inadequate medical care and a lack of knowledge concerning disability. These problems, prevailing over nearly four decades of refuge, generated a situation of distress and vulnerability that has a negative impact on this population.
Care brought to these persons remains very limited, mainly due to the lack of qualified staff and equipment, and most of them have never had access to the specific care required by their condition. Physical disability or walking difficulties often lead to isolation, and families have very little information on how to improve the daily care they provide. The training of social workers, on how to support these disabled people and provide specific aid to each beneficiary according to the degree and form of disability, is therefore needed to improve the quality of life of disabled persons, but also their autonomy and comfort.
The project will be conducted in collaboration with Saharawi authorities, who will help in terms of personnel and logistics, thus facilitating aid coordination, distributions, assistance for the disabled and the monitoring of activities at the level of different wilayas¹.
The Ministry of Equipment will bring support during distributions (mobilization of its representatives in the wilayas, provision of a hangar, a team of handlers and a truck), and the Ministry of Social Assistance and Advancement of Women will be a key player in the project, continuing the identification of the needs of disabled people during the preparation and launching of tenders for the provision of suitable equipment. It will also contribute to the planning and organization of distributions, and its social workers will participate in training sessions on how to guide and support people with disabilities. The involvement of the Ministry of Health will facilitate the transfer of knowledge to social workers through visits and meetings with the medical staff of health facilities in the camps. Exchanges may also take place with the ICRC in Tindouf and Handicap International in Algiers, so that field teams can become autonomous and conduct training sessions for the families of people with disabilities.
Through a strategy of monitoring of the network of social workers, developed by TGH in 2012 in collaboration with the State Secretariat for Social Assistance, regular and complete reporting will be available to TGH. That will allow the NGO to follow the continued presence of social workers and their interventions in the camps, to better understand the individual needs of beneficiaries, and to take into account any changes in the number of beneficiaries (death, displacements, improvement or worsening of their condition ...).
Based on the survey conducted in 2012 among people with disabilities and on the initial diagnosis - made earlier in the project by a multidisciplinary team including social workers from the Ministry of Social Assistance and Advancement of Women - TGH will establish a list containing all the material assistance needed to meet the very needs of each beneficiary. Tenders will be launched in order to select suppliers and prepare a delivery schedule adjusted to distribution dates.
Products will be collected by TGH team in the workshop made available by the Ministry of Equipment for the exclusive use of the project.
Three distributions will be organized together with all the social workers:
Questionnaires and a satisfaction survey, focused on the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the products distributed to persons with disabilities, will be prepared and implemented by the team of social workers, after having completed a training session organized by TGH’s technical team in order to be able to measure objectively the impact of actions taken.
Post-distribution monitoring will also offer the opportunity to check whether or not the families in charge of vulnerable people are using properly the equipment that has been distributed, and if they understood and implement the recommendations made by social workers during home visits.
¹ Wilaya: Administrative division corresponding to a province.