First session at RSOD

Our first Annual Partnership Review and Final Placement Evaluation was for Simon at the Rural Support Organisation for the Disabled (RSOD).

We arrived just after 9am, and I was given a quick tour of the building. The centre is a school where able and disabled nursery children are schooled together to promote inclusive education. The centre also acts as a base for women’s literacy classes and as a training centre for disabled people in the community.

The centre

After introductions and prayers we had breakfast (cake, chicken, meat pies and sausage rolls – definitely not a cornflakes kind of breakfast!). Once all of that was out the way we were able to begin. The session included 12 people, a mixture of staff, board members, and association members, including a number of disabled people and a couple of people who only spoke Mandinka.

Attendance - note the thumb prints.

The session was challenging at times, and the beginning felt a little bit stilted, but once everyone started participating it really flowed. I was unsure as to how it would all come together, not having facilitated an event like this before, but it was fantastic! Ebou and I worked really well together, and I loved hearing about what RSOD have done over this last year, what they have learned, what challenges they have faced, and more importantly what impact they have had on the lives of the people they work with.

Me working with the board members.

What's a session without post-it notes?! 

This year they elected a new board, 7 elected members and 4 co-opted members. The 7 elected members are all female, which is testament to the work they have done to empower women and prove that women, including disabled women, can have a voice. They have run adult literacy classes, loads of group training sessions – both for RSOD staff and community members – and have encouraged people to learn income generating skills such as soap making and Omo making (washing powder). They are looking to expand to a little garden project to support further income generation through vegetable production.

Perhaps the biggest change of all has been their advocacy work for the rights of disabled people. This has empowered parents to send their disabled children to school, including sending 10 deaf children to the local primary school, and has led to disabled people in the community having the power to stand up for themselves. One lady explained that she now felt confident enough to tell taxi drivers that she shouldn’t have to pay extra for her wheelchair, and that asking her to do so was like charging somebody to bring their legs into the car. 

Another lady said that due to the work she had done with RSOD she now knew that disabled people didn’t have to just sit around and do nothing, or go out begging, but could make things, and grow things, and work to support themselves and be included with the rest of the people in their compounds.

Imagine sitting on this for more than a few hours...

I found hearing the stories really moving, and it was amazing to get out and actually meet and hear from the beneficiaries that VSO and their partners are working with. I really enjoyed leading the session and felt a huge sense of achievement at the end of the day. One feedback post it note from a participant said the thing that they had enjoyed about the day was ‘the manner and the way it was conducted is what I like most’ which felt very encouraging to read on day one of doing the Annual Partnership Reviews!

Positive feedback! 

As we travelled through Basse to leave I was able to get a few snaps of the place, and check out more of my surroundings. The craziest thing was the number of vultures soaring over our heads – I have never seen so many! And it was great to see the rural mix with the urban, with donkey drawn carts, and cows everywhere. Basse was quite lively, but it was soon time for us to leave and travel to Bansang to find our next lodgings for the night.

A main street in Basse. Edwin and Pompeyo - 2 VSO vols - are in the distance.

Two boys who wanted their picture taken.

Donkey carts were everywhere.