COVID-19 has caused significant harm to people’s health and mental well-being. Businesses and the global economy have suffered, resulting in increased poverty around the world. Unfortunately, a large proportion of the new extreme poor will be concentrated in continents that already have high poverty rates, such as Africa.

According to the World Bank’s June 2020 Global Economic Prospects Report, COVID-19 is expected to push 71 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, raising the global extreme poverty rate from 8.23% in 2019 to 8.82%, the first increase since 1998.

Kenya developed the Kenya Vision 2030 ten years ago, a long-term development blueprint for the country aimed at guiding the country towards a more improved and efficient economy. This pandemic, however, has proven to be a major setback because Kenya, like many other countries, has been forced to redirect resources to public health response.

“The COVID19 pandemic exposed just how much the world relies on technology and digital products for essential services, and even more the challenges PWDs face with access to information,” says Irene Mbari-Kirika, Founder and Executive Director of inABLE.

In order to continue our programming and mission, inABLE needed to find creative solutions to adapt to the public health situation. For example, in 2020, we demonstrated our adaptability and agility by realigning, postponing, and redesigning a number of programs.

Some of the strategic changes implemented include:

• The first-ever Inclusive Africa Conference hosted by inABLE was initially scheduled for March, 2020 but instead, a successful virtual conference was held in October, 2020. The keynote speakers were H.E. The First Lady of Kenya, Mrs. Margaret Kenyatta and Disability Rights Lawyer, Haben Girma. 
• With most learners forced to go back home, the remote learning methods were not adaptive to learners with disabilities, forcing most to discontinue their education. To change the narrative, inABLE partnered with Google, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the Ministry of Education to do a pilot case study- Distanced and Disadvantaged, a Study on the effects of COVID-19 on education for Learners with Disabilities in Kenya. Afterwards, 30 students were facilitated with Chromebook laptops to continue learning at home. 
• Following insights from the 2019 Banking Industry Customer Service Survey, inABLE partnered with Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) and FSD Kenya to carry out a case-study on promoting A11Y Financial Services within the Kenya Banking Industry set to enhance accessibility of financial services in Kenya.  
• To make learning materials accessible to the blind and visually impaired students in Kenya, inABLE partnered with Daisy Consortium to train the inABLE team on book digitization and creation of accessible books (contents) by producing both accessible word, PDF and EPUB (eBooks) which the visually impaired learners can comfortably read from the first to the last page. The team is now planning to digitize thousands of learning materials.

InABLE is encouraging organizations and individuals who believe in inclusive education and accessibility for all to consider collaborating with inABLE or donating funds to purchase computer assistive technology and accessories that will allow students in the ongoing Computer-Labs-for-the-Blind program to access learning materials and advance their coding skills.

More information about the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) projects can be found here.

Written by: Esther Njeri Mwangi, Public Relations Officer, inABLE