Towards Economic Empowerment for Disabled People: Exploring ...

This seems a fairly narrow definition. Receiving disability benefits, for
example, could be considered a form of economic empowerment which falls
outside of this definition. The UNDP definition fits well with this study,
however, since all of the economic empowerment strategies that were included
tend to define the concept in this way. 9
To understand what is required for disabled people to achieve the goal of
‘economic empowerment’ requires an examination of the factors, sometimes
known as ‘barriers’, that prevent them from accumulating material assets
through education, skills development, employment and income-generation
activities, in order to live a productive life. 10
1.7 Routes to Economic Empowerment
This section summarizes the three routes to economic empowerment that
provide the study focus. 11
1.7.1 Vocational Skills Development
Disabled people face many barriers to acquiring the skills that are necessary to
engage in economic activity. Many will have been denied an education, for
example, or face inhibitions due to low self-esteem. Access to vocational skills
development, appropriate to the economic environment in which they live, is
crucial to achieving the goal of economic empowerment (Coleridge 2006). It
follows from this that approaches to economic empowerment should consider
the type of vocational skills that need to be developed, in order to enable
9 The concept of economic empowerment will be further examined in Chapter Three.
10 These barriers will be further examined in Chapter Three.
11 These routes will be explored in greater detail in Chapter Three.
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