October 29: UN International Day of Care and Support

| 29 October 2024 | 42 views

This Tuesday 29th October marks the second United Nations International Day of Care and Support. This year's observance focuses on what the UN General Assembly calls the need to "create robust, resilient and gender-responsive, disability-inclusive and age-sensitive care and support systems.” This, they proclaimed, needs to be done with “full respect for human rights with a view to recognizing, reducing, valuing and redistributing unpaid care and domestic work and support.”

The ICACBR is observing this day by taking the opportunity to shine a light on some of the work we have done to advance these aims over the past 12 months, whilst also looking ahead to where we might go from here to make this vision articulated by the UN a reality.

Back in December 2023, we conducted the first of our in-country launch events for our SSHRC-funded Partnership Grant ‘Balancing Act’, which aims to learn from global examples of effective community support for persons with disabilities. Balancing Act is a partnership between various organizations in six different countries – Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mozambique, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the ICACBR here in Canada. Travelling to meet partners in Mozambique and Guatemala, we were introduced to local community members, politicians, family members, and persons with disabilities, to introduce the aims of the project and explain how we might work together over the coming years. We later launched in our other partner sites in early-2024.

To work with partners across such diverse, distinct, and complex contexts over the past 18 months has offered a small insight into local responses to the global needs articulated by the UN – namely what it means to create robust care and support systems.

Meanwhile, in February 2024, ICACBR and Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program alumnus Zelalem Demeke officially opened the Grand Assistive Technology (GAT) Center in Gondar, with support from a range of sources, including Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program alumni community development funding. The GAT Center collaborates closely with mothers of children with disabilities to create job opportunities, aiming to improve their livelihoods and reduce their caregiving responsibilities.

The launch of the GAT Center prompted praise from the Deputy Mayor of Gondar City, who acknowledged its significant contribution to enhancing the quality of life for children with disabilities and promoting community engagement. Find out more about the GAT Center at the link above.

Back to Balancing Act, and as we move through the autumn of 2024, the ICACBR is now engaging in data collection with each of our six case partners. In particular, this week, two Queen’s faculty members from the School of Rehabilitation Therapy and a Queen’s Ph.D. student in Human Geography are in Cubulco, Guatemala, with our partners from CBM and AIDEPCE, delivering training to community data collectors.

Earlier this fall, Rehabilitation Science Ph.D. student Krishno Sen wrote about his visit to our Bangladeshi partners, CDD, to learn about their Carers Project in collaboration with Carers Worldwide. Krishno reflected that their focus on the carers, particularly mothers, “who are the backbone of support for children with disabilities,” set this project apart from others he has worked on in his career. “Over the years, I have met countless mothers of children with disabilities, yet this visit highlighted aspects of their lives that had often been overlooked in my previous encounters. The Carer Project shines a much-needed spotlight on these individuals, whose tireless efforts and sacrifices are too often unseen and unrecognized.”

Krishno’s reflections neatly encapsulate our motivation for the work we are doing and the outcomes we aspire to in our carer-focused research projects. In his words, his introduction to the Carers Project “made me realize how much more needs to be done to support these carers, not just in terms of practical assistance, but also in addressing the societal attitudes that contribute to their struggles.”

Keep checking back on our blog through the next 12 months for more updates on our work in this field!

Learn more about the UN International Day of Care and Support here: https://www.un.org/en/observances/care-and-support-day

School of Rehabilitation Therapy