Skills Development through Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR)

2. Skills and work basics
Education is the bedrock of skills development for disabled people, as it is
for everyone else, and every effort must be made to ensure that disabled
children go to school, whatever that may mean in their particular circumstances.
In the case of children with mobility impairments, transport and
access to mainstream schools are the key factors. In children with communication
impairments, including blindness and deafness, it may be
necessary to set up community-based support mechanisms if they do not
already exist.
Case Study 2: Samson Daka
Samson Daka, a trained sign-language teacher in Zambia, became deaf at a
young age and dropped out of school.
“When I became disabled I was thought to be useless by the family. My only
usefulness was found in taking care and feeding cattle in the bush. I did this
chore for three good long years. One day a headmaster of Mtenguleni School
visited my grandfather at our village and saw me playing, at the hour when my
friends were away at school. He asked my grandfather if I was going to the
school to be found in the village. So my grandfather told the headmaster that I
couldn’t learn since I was deaf. It is on this day that the headmaster saved me
by telling my grandfather about a school for the deaf at Magwero. So I went
back to school when I was 14 years.”
Core skills for work
Sometimes called “generic skills”, “enabling skills”, “employability
skills” or even “key skills”, core skills for work have been defined as “the
skills, knowledge and competencies that enhance a worker’s ability to
secure and retain a job, progress at work and cope with change, secure
another job if he/she so wishes or has been laid off and enter more easily
into the labour market at different periods of the life cycle” (Brewer
unpublished. Considerable international attention is now being given to
the development of these skills in all workers. The specific requirements
of disabled people in this important skills area also need to be
considered. 5
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