The Learning with and from the Global South: Opportunities for engaging girls and young women with disabilities across Southern spaces (ENGAGE) is a collective learning network of young women and girls with disabilities across three communities in the global South. This project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) within a Partnership Development Grant [2021-2024]. Implemented in three distinctive post-colonial contexts in Vietnam, India, and South Africa, this project aims to create decolonial spaces for these young women and girls with disabilities to develop their leadership knowledge and foster activism for their inclusion. In partnership with Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs) and universities in the global South, we will examine how young women and girls with disabilities and partners in the global South can engage, negotiate, and build their leadership as opportunities for decolonial and inclusive knowledge production in the global South. By building these collective learning networks across unique cultural and historical backgrounds, we will be developing decolonial knowledge / praxis with young women and girls with disabilities in ways that foster more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable communities in the global South.
ENGAGE has five Research Objectives:
1) CREATE decolonial and participatory spaces for girls and young women with disabilities in the global South to develop knowledge on leadership and activism;
2) ENGAGE these girls and young women in transnational and local platforms to shape their activist spaces and agendas based on their perspectives and experiences;
3) MOBILIZE these knowledge networks across advocacy organizations, universities, and communities in the global South to foster solidary and collective social action;
4) ESTABLISH sustainable relationships with global and local stakeholders and build potential for transnational activism that engages young women and girls with disabilities across the global North and South;
5) FACILITATE future partnerships with disabled girls and women and their Disabled Persons’ Organizations (DPOs) to foster their activism for inclusion and social change across the global North and South.