Community Based Rehabilitation
Creative Self Help provides Community Based Rehabilitation services (CBR) to communities around Madang Province. Our CBR officers work in rural settings supporting people with disabilities.
What is CBR?
CBR as a strategy supports the full participation and inclusion of persons with disabilities in the life of their communities. It refers to the strategy of meeting the needs of people with disabilities within their communities.
This is opposed to the centre-based strategy where people with disabilities must travel to a specialised institution to receive rehabilitation services. Institutions are often expensive to set up and run and can only cater for a small percentage of people who can access the service.
CBR involves working closely with persons with disabilities and their families to overcome physical and sociological barriers within their communities through a holistic approach to a person and their environment in the areas of health, education, livelihood, social inclusion, skill development and empowerment.
How does it work?
Comprehensive CBR involves working with people with all forms of impairment, focusing on networking with existing health, education, livelihood and social services so that they include the needs and potentials of persons with disabilities.
Sustainability and continuity can be achieved by encouraging persons with disabilities and their families to become involved in community affairs, and by encouraging the community to recognise and meet the aspirations and needs of persons with disabilities.
Goals of our CBR Program
What is CBR?
CBR as a strategy supports the full participation and inclusion of persons with disabilities in the life of their communities. It refers to the strategy of meeting the needs of people with disabilities within their communities.
This is opposed to the centre-based strategy where people with disabilities must travel to a specialised institution to receive rehabilitation services. Institutions are often expensive to set up and run and can only cater for a small percentage of people who can access the service.
CBR involves working closely with persons with disabilities and their families to overcome physical and sociological barriers within their communities through a holistic approach to a person and their environment in the areas of health, education, livelihood, social inclusion, skill development and empowerment.
How does it work?
Comprehensive CBR involves working with people with all forms of impairment, focusing on networking with existing health, education, livelihood and social services so that they include the needs and potentials of persons with disabilities.
Sustainability and continuity can be achieved by encouraging persons with disabilities and their families to become involved in community affairs, and by encouraging the community to recognise and meet the aspirations and needs of persons with disabilities.
Goals of our CBR Program
- Rehabilitation: Provide simple and effective rehabilitation services to support communities to become more inclusive, this includes providing advice on caring for PWDs.
- Awareness creation and advocacy: Increasing awareness, particularly of governments and (employers) in the private sector that persons with disabilities have the right, duty and ability to participate in economic activities and to access services in microfinance, business advice and promotion. CBM closely cooperates with Disabled Persons Organisations (DPOs) in this effort.
- Pre-vocational training: Assisting schools which enrol persons with disabilities to give due attention to vocational skills, promoted side by side with academic education.
- Skills and vocational training: Supporting training programmes to enhance marketable skills for persons with disabilities, to improve opportunities for employment and self-employment.
- Self-employment: Promotion of initiatives for the establishment of micro enterprises by persons with disabilities with business advice and provision of loans.
- Mainstreaming: Promoting scope of persons with disabilities to access and integrate within existing vocational training and employment programmes that were previously not accessible due to various barriers.