Nothing About Us Without Us: Developing Innovative Technologies For, By, and With Disabled Persons - Softcover

Werner, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0965558533 ISBN 13: 9780965558532

Publisher: Healthwrights, 1998

Synopsis

"Nothing About Us Without Us" is a book of true stories about people's creative search for solutions and is a companion to David Werner's earlier "Disabled Village Children". It is an idea book, written for disabled persons, their relatives, friends, helpers and anyone who favors a society for all. The book explores the development of innovative aids and equipment that can be made at low cost at home or in a small community workshop. Yet it also considers how to achieve fuller integration of disabled people into society: ways to help communities look at disabled persons' strengths, not their weaknesses. Examples of child-to-child activities show how disabled and non-disabled children can work, play and learn together, to enrich one another's lives. The book is based on years of collaborative work by David Werner and the disabled villagers who created and run PROJIMO, an innovative rehabilitation program in rural program in rural Mexico, although it draws on experiences from many lands.

About this title

About the Author

David Werner, a biologist by training, has spent the last 30 years working to help poor farming families in the mountains of Western Mexico to protect their health and rights. Project Piaxtla, the villager-run program to which he has been a facilitator and advisor since 1965, has contributed to the early conceptualization and evolution of Primary Health Care. The three main books he has written and illustrated - "Where There Is No Doctor", Helping Health Workers Learn" and " Disabled Village Children" - are among the most widely used in the field of community-based health care and community-based rehabilitation. He has worked in more than 50 countries - mostly in the Third World - helping to facilitate workshops and training programs, and as a consultant. David has received several awards for his groundbreaking work, including the world health organization's first International Award in Health Education in 1985 and the MacArthur "genius" fellowship in 1991. He is a founding member of the International People's Health Council and of HealthWrights (Workgroup for People's Health and Rights).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Toqo was 4 years old when his concerned parents brought him to PROJIMO from a neighboring village. His brain had been damaged shortly after he was born, apparently by meningitis. He was multiply disabled and very small for his age. Toqo could sit by himself, but his whole body was floppy, and he had little head control. The team tried sitting him in a special seat that was his size. An H-shaped strap held his body upright. But even then his head drooped forward. To keep his head from falling forward, they had to tilt the seat so far back that his head faced upward rather than outward. Only when he cried did his drooping head come up for a moment. "That gives me an idea, " said Mari. "Let's try positive seating." Mari asked Toqo's father to sit the boy in a simple child's chair. He drooped over at once. Then Mari asked his father to put a book under the back of the special seat in which Toqo sat, to tilt it a bit forward. The boy's head still drooped. But when another book tilted the seat farther forward, an amazing thing happened. Toqo's body gradually straightened, and he lifted his head.

Edition details

• Publisher: Healthwrights
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0965558533
• ISBN 13: 9780965558532
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 350