This talk by Sally Hartley on her work in Africa with disabled children, was fascinating and wide ranging. She explored how, over four decades, the interpretation of the Masai proverb had taken on deeper meanings. Her first job was as a VSO Speech Therapist, but over the years she had turned her hand to many things, and her stories were very humbling.

Every project she tackled was always underlined by the need for disabled people to be accepted into mainstream activities. Deaf children were often left in darkened rooms because they could not speak and were therefore not considered to be human. Signing was introduced to one village – a complete revelation that changed their lives. In a famine camp women were encouraged to make traditional bowls and spoons to sell for much needed cash. Sally was known as Madam Spoon!

After 20 years of development work Sally realized she was going to have to enter academia to examine and share her experiences. In too many instances the same mistakes were being repeated due to lack of guidelines to take them forward. Sally along with other researcher and colleagues in WHO, the World Bank and UNESCO produced many reports and guidelines that were there for us to browse. E.g. World Report on Disability http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/report/en/

CBR Guidelines (Community Based Reabilitation) http://www.who.int/disabilities/cbr/guidelines/en/

She also described a CBR Network she helped to set up which now functions in 53 African countries. http://afri-can.org/our-core-functions/

Sally’s quote ‘One Head Cannot Contain All Wisdom’ was born out in different ways in every project she described – things are achieved by sharing, talking and working together, not by exporting our own culture and practices. Increasingly she was able to demonstrate the positive effect of including everybody in disability research and practice, particularly disabled people themselves.

She gave us this beautiful quote to finish her talk…..

Go to the people

Live with them, learn from them, love them

Start with what they know

Build with what they have

But for the best leaders, when the work is done

The task accomplished, the people will say

‘We have done this ourselves’

                                                 by Lao Tzu

Very inspiring!  (Summary: Sal Goldsmith)