16 chapter 3
WHO SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE
FOR DISABILITY PREVENTION
Notice that many of the specific
preventive measures we have discussed,
just like the more general social measures,
depend on increased awareness,
community participation, and new ways
of looking at things. These changes do
not just happen. They require a process of
education, organization, and struggle led by
those who are most deeply concerned.
Most able-bodied persons are not very
concerned about disability or trying to
prevent it. Often people think, “Oh, that
could never happen to me!”—until it does.
Those who are most concerned about
disability are usually disabled persons
themselves and their families. Based on
this concern, they can become leaders
and community educators for disability
prevention.
Disability can affect everybody, and
sometime in our lives it usually does.
They can do this in an informal, person-to-person way.
For example,
Or disabled children and families can join
together to form prevention campaigns.
In one village, mothers put on short
plays to inform the whole community
about the importance of breast feeding
and vaccination. (See p. 74.) In Project
PROJIMO, Mexico, disabled rehabilitation
workers have helped to vaccinate children in
remote mountain villages.
In PART 1 of this book, where we discuss
different disabilities, we also include basic
information on prevention. We hope that those
of you who use this book for children who
are already disabled, will also work actively
towards disability prevention.
PREVENTING SECONDARY DISABILITIES
So far we have talked mainly about preventing original or ‘primary’ disabilities, such as polio
or spinal cord injury. But the prevention of ‘secondary’ disabilities is also very important, and
is one of the main concerns of rehabilitation.
By ‘secondary’ disabilities we mean further disabilities or complications that can appear
after, and because of, the original disability.
Disabled village Children