Resources

Engage Disability Toolkit

This toolkit helps the Christian community care for, accompany and serve alongside those with disabilities.It contains guidelines on responding to practical needs like health and education with helpful sections on empowerment and employment. It also contains personal stories that inspire and encourage.

The cross-cutting theme is that of the call to love; we are called to friendship with those with disability.

Click here for a copy of the toolkit.

The network offers training on the use of the toolkit. To schedule a training, please contact us at engagedisability@gmail.com

Family Retreat

Based on the concept developed by Joni and friends, the event is aimed at families touched by disabilities to provide an opportunity for fun and rest in the comfort over safe and accessible environment.

Objectives:

• To provide opportunities for leisure through accessible, age-appropriate activities
• To facilitate meaningful conversations with families who understand the challenges of life with disability
• To provide respite for primary caregivers of those with disabilities
• To provide opportunities for churches to become involved with brothers and sisters with disabilities

The network offers training and support to run these family retreats. If you are interested in hosting a family retreat or if you would like to be a volunteer at one of the retreats, please contact us at engagedisability@gmail.com

ED Disability Inclusion Audit Tool for Churches

A tool for ongoing self-assessment and progressive improvement of churches in their journey towards disability inclusion. 

In June 2021 ED rolled out this inclusion audit tool in one of its bi monthly Hub Coordinators’ meetings. The 13 ED Hubs were tasked with identifying churches/congregations that may be willing to try out this tool.

WHY DO WE NEED AN AUDIT TOOL:
1. The inclusion of any marginalised group has to be intentional and must begin by looking at our attitudes, systems, structures, and processes that exclude people.
2. An inclusion audit tool helps congregations assess their attitudes, systems, structures, and processes that exclude certain groups. It also helps plan for improvement in their inclusion of persons belonging to excluded groups such as persons with disabilities.
3. A disability inclusion audit helps to ensure “There is nothing about us without us” i.e., nothing that concerns those with disabilities should be discussed/ decided on without their active participation.
3. This tool assists congregations to assess themselves and also enables a congregation to understand what can be done so that “life in all its fullness” (John 10:10) will be experienced by all peoples, especially persons with disabilities in their congregation.

This tool can be used by a congregation to make an initial assessment of the disability inclusion level the congregation is at. It is also a learning tool that directs a congregation to areas that may need improvement, and to information and wisdom on disability inclusion practices.

This tool is an ongoing assessment tool that can be used at periodic intervals (say once in 6 months or once a year) to assess if progress has been made since the first assessment, and to know if the congregation has grown to another level in its journey towards disability inclusion. 

ED recommends that the audit tool be filled-in as a group activity by a group of people belonging to a particular congregation. This audit tool is not to be filled out by individual pastors alone. 

If you wish to deploy the tool in your own congregation, this is the link to the google form.    Please ensure that you follow the instructions to complete this audit. 

To know more about how to use the ED Disability Inclusion Audit tool for churches, do write to the National Coordinator at engagedisability@gmail.com 

Bible Studies 

These Bible Studies were compiled to help ED Hub Coordinators lead Bible Studies from a disability perspective. 

You can access the Bible Studies here. More Bible Studies will be added in due course.

Other Disability Related Resources

ED has collated resources that may be helpful to work with churches on disability, raise awareness on laws and frameworks related to disability, sensitivity to disability related terms, resources to make worships more disabled friendly and accessible, scholarly articles related to disability studies, and reports/studies related to disability and the pandemic. This can be accessed here. This section of resources will be updated on an ongoing basis, so do check in from time to time. 

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