2025

ICACBR | Year‑in‑Review

International Centre for the Advancement of Community‑Based Rehabilitation

Welcome from the Scientific Director

2025 was a milestone year for the ICACBR — a year defined by partnership, global collaborations, and meaningful progress across our core research programs. We welcomed our final Queen Elizabeth Scholars – West Africa cohort, moved into the wind‑down phase of our Mastercard Foundation partnership, and hit the halfway point of our Balancing Act SSHRC Partnership Grant with the submission of our midterm report. Our global engagement expanded through participation in the World Rehabilitation Alliance and the new WHO Disability Health Equity Network.

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This has been an important year of milestones for research, partnerships, and action for the ICACBR. We welcomed our final cohort of incoming Queen Elizabeth Scholars – West Africa to Queen’s in the summer (Dorothy and Tawa, faculty members from the University of Ghana), and we also facilitated travel for one outgoing Scholar (Meisha – a PhD student from Kinesiology and Health Studies). We have now officially closed this project in 2025 but look forward to future opportunities to engage with Universities Canada and the Queen Elizabeth Scholars program as they arise.

I cannot believe that we have now been partnering with the University of Gondar and the Mastercard Foundation for over nine years in the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, and that this program is scheduled to close in less than a year. Project activities are already moving toward project wind-down and wrap up, and this year we celebrated 12 new graduates, funded three exciting new knowledge mobilization strategies, and intensively planned for a project showcase that will take place in Addis Ababa in the first half of 2026.

Finally, we passed a major milestone with the Balancing Act project – submitting our milestone report to our funder, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, to officially account for our activities and outputs at the halfway point of the project. This year we completed data collection for the six independent case studies, marking an important shift in project focus for the future – focusing greater energies into knowledge mobilization and output generation. We are grateful for all the hard work and commitment from all project partners, students, and staff to bring us this far in the work.

Beyond our core projects, ICACBR has continued its active engagement in relevant global networks, including the World Rehabilitation Alliance (through Dr. Catherine Donnelly as our representative). This year, we also joined the World Health Organization’s new Disability Health Equity Network. This Network, currently bringing 154 members from governments, civil society, academia and international organizations, represents an exciting coordination of global efforts to build inclusive and equitable health systems for persons with disabilities. Drs. Setareh Ghahari and Nicole Bobbette represented ICACBR at the official launch of the network at the WHO in Geneva this year, and Dr. Ghahari and Dr. Afolasade Fakolade will continue engaging in two separate work streams on this network in 2026.

I am, once again, grateful to our partners around the world, along with the ICACBR community – staff, students, and faculty – who work so hard and with such passion and dedication to our mission and vision. It has been a great year, and we have much to look forward to in the year to come.

Highlights from 2025

Faculty Awards

Drs. Beata Batorowicz, Nicole Bobbette, Catherine Donnelly, and Heather Aldesey received major national recognitions for their contributions.

SSHRC Insight Development Grant

A new $75,000 SSHRC IDG supports early‑stage research into Indigenous experiences of disability supports, co‑led with Dr. Grant Bruno.

Partnerships & Global Engagement

Attendees of the inaugural WHO Disability Health Equity Initiative smile for the camera.

Joining WHO Disability Health Equity Network

ICACBR joined the WHO Disability Health Equity Network and took part in its inaugural meeting in Geneva.

Effect Hope visit

In June 2025, the ICACBR hosted a visit by Effect Hope, a charity that supports communities affected by tropical disease globally.

CEO Kim Evans, VP of International Programs Maneesh Phillip, VP of Advocacy & Strategic Partnerships Anna Wickenden, and Digital Marketing Manager Christine Casarsa traveled to Kingston to learn more about the work that the ICACBR does, and to explore a potential research partnership in the future.

We heard from Dr. Wickenden that Effect Hope has lots of data from its own research, and would love to partner with the ICACBR to help increase their capacity to make sense of these findings. Researchers in the ICACBR are continuing discussions with Effect Hope to this end.

Science Meets Parliament

Dr. Aldersey connected with policymakers to advance discussions on disability supports and progress toward the SDGs.

In the Media

Caregiving support in Canada

In recognition of National Caregivers Day in Canada in April 2025, ICACBR Scientific Director co-authored an article for The Conversation with Donna Thomson, a caregiver, author and educator.

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Care for the Caregivers

Scientific Director Dr. Heather Aldersey offered her perspective on this insightful report into the lack of federal supports for caregivers in Canada.

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Project Highlights

The Queen Elizabeth Scholars program wrapped in 2025 after four strong cohorts, advancing CBPR training and research partnerships with visiting Ghanaian scholars. The Balancing Act project hit key midterm milestones with extensive interviews, community data‑collector training, and active knowledge mobilization. The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program marked major achievements, including multiple fellow graduations, international placements, and new tools to support ongoing knowledge sharing.

Queen Elizabeth Scholars Program

In 2025, the QES-AS West Africa Project brought together researchers and organizations of persons with disabilities and their families from Canada and Ghana for community-based, participatory research (CBPR) collaborations.

In summer 2025, two instructors and researchers in physiotherapy from the University of Ghana visited the ICACBR in Summer, 2025. While at ICACBR, they:

Participated in training on community-based participatory research approaches, qualitative data analysis, family engagement in research, creating infographics, and inclusive pedagogy
Conducted research with the Ontario Developmental Disability Advocacy and Support Network (ODDASN).
Engaged with faculty, staff, and students at Queen’s University and within the local community, including the Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Sciences departments at Queen’s, as well as with the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre (DDQIC).
Mentored and supported ICACBR trainees.

Miesha Polintain, a Ph.D. student in Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s traveled to collaborate with our partner institution Kwame Nkruma Institute of Science and Technology (KNUST) and to support the implementation of a community-based participatory action research project that was started by the cohort of incoming Scholars from KNUST to Canada and their community partners in 2023.

We were thrilled that this project was selected by Universities Canada to be profiled in the 2024/2025 annual report for the QE Scholars Program (p. 4): https://univcan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/QES-Annual-report-2024-25.pdf

This project has now been officially closed. We have deeply benefitted from our partnership and collaboration with Universities Canada and the Queen Elizabeth Scholars program with four different projects since 2015. We look forward to future opportunities to continue this collaboration.

Balancing Act

Summary of activity in 2025

Figure 2: Balancing Act map of partners

October 2025 marked the midterm point of the Balancing Act project and offered a unique opportunity to reflect on the achievements of the first two-and-a-half years of the project.

After spending much of 2024 preparing for data collection, training community data collectors, and conducting interviews, our primary focus in 2025 was on analysing the data collected in all six case partner sites, and returning to visit our partners to share our findings with the community who helped us develop them.

In March 2025, members of the team travelled to Mozambique to round out our first round of training local community members in data collection, and the interviews themselves.

Attendees of the community validation meeting at Gondar, Ethiopia.

For the rest of 2025, our focus was primarily on analysis of this first round of data collection, in which we interviewed persons with disabilities, family members, neighbours and community members, and organization staff in each of our six case partner sites. This began in earnest by engaging all our trainee data collectors in participatory analysis sessions in the first half of the year – you can read more about those below. The dual academic and participatory analyses sessions helped prepare us to share our preliminary findings with the community in each context. We have returned to four out of the six case partner sites to share findings in community validation meetings so far.

We have, in the latter months of 2025, turned our attentions to the second round of data collection – interviewing formal support providers in all six cases. At the time of writing (December 2025), interviews are either underway or complete in five out of six cases.

SSHRC midterm report – taking stock at the mid-way point

In October 2025, we submitted our midterm report to our funder, SSHRC, marking the halfway point of the Balancing Act project. Here we share in summary form some of the major highlights of the project so far.

At-a-glance: what we have accomplished so far:

Launched the project in all six sites with in-person events and meetings.
Trained 31 community members in five different countries in data collection, including several self-advocates.
Conducted 195 interviews with staff, family members, neighbours, and persons with disabilities completed in all six partner sites.
Participatory analysis sessions completed in all five sites where community members conducted interviews.
Academic analysis, including document review, coding of interview transcripts, collaborative identification of preliminary themes, discussion of findings, validation, and finalization, in four out of six sites.
At least seven manuscripts are either underway or already submitted relating to this first round of data collection.
Visited four out of our six partner sites to share findings from the first round of data collection, and engaged local communities in asking “what should we now do with these findings” to help inform our knowledge mobilization strategy.
Guest-edited a special edition of the Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development Journal focused on project objectives and themes.
Worked with 14 doctoral students, 3 masters students and 2 undergraduate students on a range of project tasks including document review and analysis, ethics submissions, data collection and analysis, training and mentorship, writing, and more.
Also conducted 80 interviews with formal support providers so far, with plans to complete around 35 more in early-2026.
Translating knowledge findings: the project has already generated several knowledge mobilization outputs, including a conference presentation at the biannual IASSSIDD conference in Chicago in August 2024; a panel discussion with UK policy thinktank Foundations on UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities in December 2024; presentation at Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health (CanWaCH) in May 2025.

Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program

Since 2016, the ICACBR at Queen’s and the University of Gondar (UoG) have collaborated with the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program to advance inclusive higher education for young people with disabilities in Ethiopia and other countries in Africa.

In the penultimate year of the project, more Fellows (both PhD and Occupational Therapy) reached the conclusion of their studies and graduated.

Student Achievements

Seven PhD fellows graduated in 2025, while cohort five and cohort six fellows continue to undertake data collection for their projects in Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, five OT fellows graduated in 2025. In addition, three OT fellows completed placements in Ghana (2) and Kenya (2), while four other fellows completed community development placements in Ethiopia, including at the Grand Assistive Technology (GAT) Centre in Gondar.

The inaugural cohort of sixteen Undergraduate Occupational Therapy Students at the University of Gondar graduated in July 2025, with nearly all employed as Occupational Therapists upon graduation!

Alumni Network Strategy

The ICACBR launched its LinkedIn page in 2025, which served as a valuable means of communicating and engaging with Mastercard Foundation project alumni. You can follow us here: https://www.linkedin.com/school/icacbr/.

Knowledge mobilization and monitoring/evaluation activities

As the project winds up, attention is more squarely focused on knowledge mobilization and evaluation.

In partnership with Mastercard Foundation Fellows and alumni, Dr. Robyn Read from the Mastercard Foundation, Queen’s student academic success office, and library services, we have delivered two Knowledge Mobilization training sessions and created a knowledge mobilization toolkit. The Research and Learning Coordinator and Dessalegn, a Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Ph.D. Fellow in History, partnered with the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Office in Ethiopia to run a community feedback session in late 2025.

Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program

Mastercard Foundation Scholars & Fellows Awards - Student Awards

Award for Outstanding Contributions to the UoG/Queen's University Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program: Meseret Ayele This award recognizes a Fellow/alumnus who has demonstrated outstanding contribution to the values and implementation of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at UoG/Queen's University. This year’s recipient was Meseret Ayele.

Alumni Spotlight

Molalign Adugna

Impact‑oriented academic and co‑director of the UoG Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, advancing disability inclusion across East Africa.

Rahel Olana

OT practitioner and educator at UoG, building mentorship and professional capacity through regional networks and events.

Rediet Getachew Ayele

OT lecturer, former department head, and national leader promoting the profession across Ethiopia.

Events

Malcolm Peat Lectureship

The 7th Annual Dr. Malcolm Peat Lectureship took place in April 2025, a notable occasion for featuring the first lecture to be delivered in a language other than English. Scholar and disability rights activist Dr. Rosa Idalia Aldana Salguero as this year’s invited speaker.

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Publications, Presentations & Knowledge Mobilization

Abera, M. et al. (2025). African Journal of Disability. DOI
Aldersey, H. M. et al. (2025). School Community Journal.
Mirach, T. H. et al. (2025). African Journal of Disability. DOI
Wami, S. D. et al. (2025). Journal of Back & Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation. DOI
Araya, B. M. et al. (2025). International Journal of Gynaecology & Obstetrics. DOI
Piccone, C. Collier & Aldersey, H. M. Qualitative Interview Training for Self-Advocates. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities
Nuri, R.P., Mzinganjira, A., Abera, M., Emblem, K.A., & Aldersey, H.M. (Submitted). To stay abroad or return home? Factors that contribute to decision-making for scholars from Africa on study leave for higher education

View all publications, conference presentations, Media and Knowledge Mobilization

Journal Publications

Conference presentations

Piccone, C., Aldersey, H.M., Collier, C., Dean, T., Hague, J., Enger, E., Burke, M., & Obuchowski, B. (2025). Reflections on the Successes and Challenges of a Qualitative Research Training with Self-Advocates accessing disability-related supports. The Qualitative Report's 16th Annual Conference (TQR2025).
Aldersey, H.M. & Collier, T. (2025). Using participatory processes to understand disability supports globally. Canadian Partnership for Women’s and Children’s Health (CanWaCH), Global Health Impact Summit.
Getu, T., Chorlton, B., Genikomsou, K., and Green, M. (2025) A Systematic Review of Built-Environment Resilience to Wild land-Urban Interface Fires and Mitigation Strategies (Presented at CSCE Winnipeg 2025 Annual Conference in Winnipeg on May 28th, 2025).
Getu, T., Chorlton, B., Genikomsou, K., and Green, M. (2025) Regulatory challenges for Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) fires risk reduction to the built environment in remote communities in Canada (Accepted for presentation at SFPE Vancouver 2025 Annual International Conference in Vancouver on October 21-23, 2025).
Mersha A, Mekonen A, Adugna M, DePaul V, Fakolade A. (2025). Community reintegration experiences of stroke survivors and their family caregivers in Africa: a qualitative systematic review. The 5th African Stroke Organization Conference (ASOC), Nairobi, Kenya.

Media

Aldersey, H. (2025, July 24). Governments must ensure caregivers have support to keep doing their vital work. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/governments-must-ensure-caregivers-have-support-to-keep-doing-their-vital-work-249829

Knowledge Mobilization

Tibeb Debele– Drama
Bilen Araya- Animation video and Infographic brochure
Biniyam Abebe- Podcast

2025 Annual report

Welcome from the Scientific Director

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Highlights from 2025

Faculty Awards

Read more

SSHRC Insight Development Grant

Partnerships & Global Engagement

Joining WHO Disability Health Equity Network

Read more

Effect Hope visit

Science Meets Parliament

In the Media

Caregiving support in Canada

Care for the Caregivers

Project Highlights

Read more

Queen Elizabeth Scholars Program

Balancing Act

SSHRC midterm report – taking stock at the mid-way point

Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program

Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program

Read more

Alumni Spotlight

Molalign Adugna

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Rahel Olana

Read more

Rediet Getachew Ayele

Read more

Events

Malcolm Peat Lectureship

Publications, Presentations & Knowledge Mobilization

View all publications, conference presentations, Media and Knowledge Mobilization