Evaluating Community-Based Rehabilitation for Employment Inclusion among Young People Living with Visual Impairment: Focus on Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to review Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) as a strategy recognized internationally to address barriers of access to equal opportunities and improvement of quality of life (QOL) for people with disabilities. The study also sought to interrogate how CBR be localized in Kenya to meet the sociocultural, health, education and economic needs of young people with visual impairment. When CBR was first developed in the 1980s, it was centered on providing access to community-level health and therapy. The World Health Organization (WHO) saw CBR as a strategy to increase access to rehabilitation services at community level for people with disabilities. However, the CBR approach has evolved into a much broader, multisectoral approach to inclusivity at community level in supporting and increasing development (WHO, 2017). Young people with disabilities in Kenya are generally not accessed equal opportunities and work participation in the community. They are marginalized owing to cultural biases and severity of disabilities which interact with such factors as gender, age and poverty.