Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) focuses on enhancing the quality of life for people with disabilities and their families, meeting basic needs and ensuring inclusion and participation. - WHO

 

We are involved in providing technical support to two community based rehabilitation projects. The first is a project of the Ministry of Public Health in Anosy Avaratra - Sabotsy Namena, the other a project of the Ministry of Population in Ambohidratrimo.

 

Our involvement with CBR began in 2012. Kate Sherry, part of the Common Good Foundation outreach team, and Growing the Nations Therapy Programmes occupational therapist Anri-Louise Oosthuizen, did a 5-day workshop in the Hambisela Program for cerebral palsy with a group of 22 agents from Anosy Avaratra and Mercy projects respectively. From there the CBR partnership with the Ministry of Public Health began.

 

The CBR program in Anosy Avaratra and Sabotsy Namena was not reaching its full potential, and early in 2013 this program was relaunched to increase its effectivity. The 44 CBR agents in this area, representatives from the DPOs, mayor's office, community, and hospital attended refresher workshops on the CBR philosophy. This was followed by an in-depth but simple training on identification of disability where after the CBR agents went back to their communities to identify those persons in need of CBR. Monthly meetings are held, supported by 3-monthly monitoring meetings by the Ministry of Public Health and us. We consult in the program administration, attend both monthly and quarterly meetings, have provided administration resources to the workers in the form of files, note books and pens, do homevisits on request and train the agents in various conditions. In 2013, aside from the workshops in the CBR philosophy and identification of disability, agents attended 2 workshops on stokes, as well as a workshop on intellectual impairment.

 

The program in Ambohidratrimo is currently undergoing the same process of relaunching. The first discussions amongst team leader have taken place and an action plan has been set in motion to take the project forwards.

 

2013 was a milestone year for CBR in Madagascar, as the Ministry of Population, together with CBM organised a 2-day CBR workshop in Antsirabe in October. Many national stakeholders were invited to participate in discussion defining the role and scope of CBR in Madagascar. A Malagasy definition was finalized, role players agreed to partnerships in order to improve CBR in Madagascar, and it was agreed that it will be a multi-sectoral inclusive approach. One of the highlights of this workshop, which we were privileged to attend, was site-visits to various CBR projects around that area.