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Professor Wendy Parent-Johnson moderated a Zoom meeting as part of the Twezimbe project for inclusion.
Three years ago, we founded the Twezimbe Project for Inclusion out of an urgent need to enhance competitive, integrated employment opportunities for graduates with disabilities in Uganda. The project’s blueprint was realized through the expertise gained during the Professional Fellows Program on Inclusive Civic Engagement, a globally funded initiative by the U.S. Department of State for disability leaders in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.
We collaborated with Dr. Wendy Parent-Johnson, a specialist in model development, inclusive education, and supported employment, to establish a model for the development of the Twezimbe for Inclusion.
We then collaborated with Wendy on the Outbound Fellowship funded by the U.S. Department of State and overseen by the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Wendy, who was then the Executive Director of the University of Arizona Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities, along with Sonoran staff conducted an outbound training for disability leaders, entrepreneurs, and small business owners with disabilities and their caregivers in Uganda. The outbound training laid the foundation and infrastructure for development, replication, and sustainability of Twezimbe Project for Inclusion.
We then created the “Journeys to Inclusion” series, helping young advocates learn from best advocacy practices of foremost disability advocates around the world through virtual campaigns. We used the “Journeys to Inclusion” series to better understand. We used the “Journeys to Inclusion” series to better understand effective advocacy strategies and to foster a global dialogue on inclusion and disability rights.
We have now partnered again with the Virginia Commonwealth University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (VCURRTC) through Wendy, who is currently the Executive Director. In collaboration with Kyambogo University Faculty of Special Needs and Professor Augustus Nuwagaba, an economics professor at Makerere University, we are piloting the Employment-First Policy and Practice course. This course examines the evolution of the Employment-First policy in the U.S. and explores how it could be adapted or adopted to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities elsewhere, such as in Uganda.
