Volunteers with disabilities pave way for future international exchange programs
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In an Australian first, a team of five people with disabilities has successfully completed an international volunteer mission, and organisers Scope Global hope it will be the first of many.
The team of five — made up of four vision-impaired and one hearing-impaired volunteer — travelled to Fiji to work with people with disabilities.
The volunteers spent 28 days in Suva and visited five organisations during their stay.
The Disability Empowerment Skills Exchange (DESE) pilot was created by Scope Global as part of the Federal Government's Australian Volunteers for International Development program.
"We designed a program to make the volunteering program more inclusive," said Alex Kay, disability development officer at Scope Global.
"We went over to Suva with disabled persons' organisations based there, primarily to build leadership skills.
Photo:
DESE team member Vas meets a local during the Fiji exchange program. (Supplied: Scope Global)
"We had never mobilised a team of people with disabilities before."
The program recently saw Ms Kay win the National Disability Award for inclusive development.
"One of the most rewarding outcomes from my perspective was to see how the people with similar disabilities saw this team coming in."
She said many local people admired the mobility of the visiting volunteers and were empowered to achieve similar independence.
"I think it really inspired people to think, 'oh, if they can do it, we can do it'."
Team leader Caroline Conlon, who spoke through a sign language interpreter, said the group made a big impact.
"Because it was a team, I believe we had more impact in the wider community and attracted more attention," she said.
Ms Conlon said the group's presence in the communities created conversations about people with disabilities and changed perceptions.
"The biggest reward was the impact that the team had on the local community.
"I think that people realised that people with a disability can be on an equal basis with everyone else.
"I'm really hopeful that the impact we had is long lasting."
Ms Kay said, based on the success of the first trial, others were now being planned.
"We are in planning phases for trial two and three and want to try them in different sectors.
"We'd also like to trial it in Asia to see if the model we trialled in the Pacific will work there."
Topics: volunteers, disabilities, human-interest, adelaide-5000
