Pamoja education project participatory research

• To serve Sightsavers’ inclusive education project in Homa Bay, Kenya, making it research-based
• To ensure children with disabilities, their parents and teachers help to shape the project intervention for disability inclusion through sharing their lived experiences at the beginning, middle and end of the project
• To ensure participatory research is carried out by peer researchers who are local teachers and parents

How are boys and girls with disabilities, their parents and their teachers experiencing school inclusion in five schools in Homa Bay, Kenya, and what do they suggest as ways forward?

The community-based participatory research (CPBR) has been built into the project design so that the lived experiences of children with disabilities, their parents and teachers at the schools involved in the inclusive education project can help to shape the inclusive education interventions.

The project itself has an overall objective to help achieve universal access to basic education for all children with disabilities in the Homa Bay region and more specifically to:

• strengthen existing education assessment and resource centres as well as nationwide, to support children with disabilities and their parents.
• strengthen six pilot schools to provide a strong, nationally-replicable model of quality education for children with disabilities.
• ensure local communities support the inclusion of children with disabilities in the six pilot schools.
• ensure the government’s Ministry of Education in Kenya implements policies which strengthen education provision for children with disabilities nationwide.

There are three phases to the CBPR research:

• 2016: in time for children, parents and teachers to inform the intervention design
• 2018: once interventions are in place within the schools
• 2019: towards the end of the education project

Research reports are available for each phase.

• Read the stage 1 research report (pdf)
• Read the stage 2 research report (pdf)