 Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. Welcome to the round table discussion on age, gender, disability and diversity inclusion in the Global Protection Forum. My name is Sabreen and I'm the facilitator for this session. The theme of this year's forum is in the hour of need, advancing prevention and proactive protection. This theme reflects the urgent need to protect the most vulnerable communities in a humanitarian crisis. Especially those who face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and exclusion based on their age, gender, disability or diversity. In this session, we will explore how to ensure inclusive and effective protection services for people with diverse needs and identities in a humanitarian context. We will hear from five panelists who will share their experience, challenges and best practices in applying an age, gender and diversity approach in their work. We will also discuss how to address the gaps and opportunities in policy and the practice to promote the rights and dignity of all individuals. The session will last for 90 minutes. We will have 10 minutes for each panelist presentation followed by 25 minutes for questions and answers from the audience. And 10 minutes for finally closing recommendations from Sabah and inclusion colleagues from Syria. We encourage you to participate actively in the session by asking questions, sharing your view and providing feedback. You can use the chat function to raise your hand to indicate your interest. The session will be conducted in English, but we will provide interpretation services in Arabic and French for your convenience. Before we start, I would like to remind you of some ground rules for this session. Please respect the diversity of opinions and experience of the speakers and participants. Please use the respectful language and avoid any personal attacks or offense remarks. Please mute your microphone when you are not speaking and turn on your camera if possible. Please also respect the time limit for your intervention and the questions. So now I would like to thank you for your attention and co-operate. I hope you will enjoy this session and learn from each other. Let me introduce our first panelist. Amjad is a protection officer from the protection sector in Syria to open the session. Amjad, how do you see inclusion within a humanitarian context? Which experience that you would like to share from Syria? Good afternoon all. Can you hear me Sabri? Yes, very well. Thank you. First of all, maybe I can quickly mention something about like AGD, Agenda and Diversity. Mainly about how essential is it and the equality and the importance of gender analysis. Then maybe I can share with the participants something about the disability. How a quick introduction and highlight on some terms, important terms. And then finally we'll just be focused about the serious situation. What is going on and how is the protection sector response over there? We'll speak about the AGD, the Agenda and Diversity. I would say like it is an essential for humanitarian actors to ensure that everyone in affected communities, AGD is not an option. It is a key component of fair and equal protection. I can also mention something about equality which is respect of diversity as a valuable element. And how people giving equal opportunities for people from different needs. I can also mention something about an emergency response. Older people are typically overlooked. Sometimes they are rarely consulted with the needs. They are missed out when there is a data collection or data information. I would say in some places they are really overlooked. I can also mention something about how to speak about the gender analysis. When there is a strong analysis and there is integrating gender equality that helps all the humanitarian actors to ensure accountability. Then I can also mention something about the disability in general and how there is a need to improve the extent to which affected people including people with disabilities, especially women and vulnerable groups. I would also like to highlight something about who is responsible for this. It is a responsibility for all of us. Humanitarians, donors, coordinators, implementing partners and even government. I would like to stress on this and also I would like to mention some, I highlight some definitions and some terms which is a disability inclusion. What does it mean? Mainstreaming inclusion and accessibility. Disability inclusion which is a meaningful participation of persons with disabilities in all their diversity. Mainstreaming inclusion is a concept of a systemic approach to inclusion in all areas of operation and programming. Which means also protection programming and all programming to include and mainstream inclusion in everywhere. Accessibility which is I would say the most important issue. We can mention that ensuring persons with disabilities have access and equal faces with others. Mentioning something about Syria situation, I would say like there is an overall people with disabilities face significant challenges in enjoying an adequate standard of living and living in independent lives in Syria. In Syria we also, I can mention something about the response on the disability. The protection sector has jointly with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour conducted a joint workshop which is mainly on enhancing the inclusion of people with disabilities in the programming for 2023. This was conducted jointly as I said with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour. It was a successful step and we considered the protection sector as an achievement. And the main purpose was to align what both the humanitarians and the Ministry of Social Affairs do on disability inclusion. It was a big workshop and even attended by different experts from the UN, NGOs and INGOs from inside Syria or outside of Syria. The outcome of this workshop was successful and some partners even like us the protection sector to carry on and to proceed with such event and organizing such workshops mainly on disabilities. In conclusion of this workshop the humanitarian responses of persons with disabilities present a critical opportunity to build sustainable programs, activities and services. Above all the protection sector jointly had conducted the training from human and inclusion trainer Sabreen. She attended, she came to Syria and we did the training on disability inclusion in the humanitarian response. In all Syrian governance it was a very very successful training. It was really requested by the protection partners and we came up with tens of recommendations I would say mainly like to agree how to unify approach of identification of persons with disabilities moving toward empowering people with disabilities. Humanitarian actors just also was a main highlight. Humanitarian actors are mainly focusing on physical disability and less concern on MHPSS. It is highly recommended to draw the attention of the humanitarian to the pressing need and support on the MHPSS. I would also mention that HelpAge International has held a national age inclusion specialist to support the inclusion. Finally I would say the protection sector is seriously in Syria, is seriously continues to advocate for disability inclusion and AGD in both HNOs, HRPs and even in POWs. And incorporate the must do actions and include key indicators inclusion of partners with disabilities. The main highlight several times like persons with disabilities should be involved always in decision making. They have to be consulted in programming. They have always in protection mainstreaming to be always the way forward both protection mainstreaming and giving the chance for an involving person with disabilities in all programming. I don't know if you have some questions. Thank you Amjad, we will leave the questions later. Really interesting experience and I appreciate your effort in Syria to move and keep moving forward toward inclusion. Thank you so much. Our next panelist is a program coordinator in humanitarian action UN women's regional office for Asia and Asia Pacific. Jeha working group co-chair. By understanding gender and diversity dynamics, responders can develop context appropriate intervention ensuring that diverse needs and vulnerabilities of women, men, LGBTQ individuals and people from various backgrounds are effectively addressed in emergency situation. Some of the most recent cases from the Asia Pacific region include the flooding in Pakistan, flooding in Manimar. We know that the working group has promoted a rapid gender analysis based on different available tools to provide invaluable insight into the gender specific impact of a crisis. Enabling swift and targeted response that address the compounding needs and vulnerabilities of the most vulnerable population. How have these tools been instrumental in understanding the unique needs, vulnerabilities and capacities of gender, LGBTQ and diverse individuals in crisis? Thank you so much for the question, Sabrina. Hello, everyone. My name is Joel Charbonneau. I'm the co-chair of the Asia Pacific Gender and Humanitarian Action Working Group. We coordinate gender stakeholders across the region to make sure that the specific needs and vulnerabilities of women, girls, gender diverse individuals, men and boys are included both across the region and an in-country level humanitarian responses and advocacy efforts. So as we know, the first stage of any humanitarian response is to conduct a needs assessment and an analysis. And it's based on these assessments that decisions around funding allocations but also program design and areas for priority focus are made. And so therefore, it's really imperative that we make sure that any assessment has a strong focus and inclusion of the specific needs and vulnerabilities in order to ensure that the most vulnerable groups within a community are receiving the support that they require. And in this case, of different gender identities and where possible, making sure that women-led organizations or people of diverse gender organizations themselves are leading on these exercises and analyses. So well, response-wide humanitarian assessments are improving by nature. They're often targeted at the household level and they often do not reach out to those who are most marginalized. So I'd like to share today three tools and some experiences within the Asia-Pacific region that we've had using them that will hopefully help to inspire you. So the first tool that I would like to discuss is the one that I think everyone is going to be the most familiar with. And this is CARE International's rapid gender analysis tool. So the CARE RGA tool is available online. It's very flexible drawing on existing data and then quick primary data collection. And it has a range of different tools for that data collection from focus group discussions to key informant interviews, community mapping, gender protection audits, and others. So most recently, the tool was adapted by the Gija community of practice during the Cyclone Mocha response in Myanmar. So I don't know if everyone is aware Cyclone Mocha was one of the strongest cyclones ever reported in the country and it made landfall in May this year. It affected 7.9 million people across the country. But Rakhine State in the west was the worst affected with around 1.2 million people impacted. And many of those were internally displaced people who were living in IDP camps. And so the Cyclone made a very dire situation, even worse, for communities who are already living with the compounded crisis of COVID-19, ongoing conflict, and political and economic upheaval. And then there are some significant operational challenges in Myanmar, including restrictions to humanitarian access. But following the Cyclone, the RGA tool was adapted to be conducted through an observational review by local organizations. And so to highlight, for example, some of the protection concerns that were raised, these observation teams determined that toilets and showering or bathing facilities were posing an obvious security risk in a number of areas. Including through environmental issues such as open sewage, damaged and dangerous structures, and proximity to streams. And many of these sites that they observed, there was limited or no access to toilets, which was forcing people to practice open defecation. And in those locations where open defecation was practiced, observers noted that many of these areas were remote and unlit and therefore very risky for women and girls and completely inaccessible for older people and people living with disabilities. So I think that the Cyclone MOCA adaptation of the tool is a great example of how humanitarian responders can be very creative in making sure that analysis of gender issues is ensured. The second tool that I would like to highlight is the edge effect and UN women's diverse SOGS inclusion rapid assessment tool. SOGS stands for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics, or we can refer to LGBTIQ plus, which everyone may be more familiar with. So there is a massive lack of LGBTIQ perspectives in humanitarian assessments and frankly even in most gender analysis. So often we see in assessments a general commitment to meet the needs of other vulnerable groups, or we may see mention of LGBTIQ groups, communities in passing, but without really providing substantive guidance for how their inclusion and needs can be met in the response planning and actions. So the diverse SOGS rapid assessment tool focuses on six key areas. Program background, pre-emergency marginalization and gender analysis, inclusion, participation in leadership, protection and safety, shelter and livelihoods. And the tool requires collaboration with a diverse SOGS CSO who would lead on conducting the survey research with LGBTIQ community members alongside the humanitarian agency, which would assess its own programs. So the rapid assessment tool was piloted in Cox's Bazaar Bangladesh where I'm actually calling from and that context remains a positive example of where the issues and perspectives of people with diverse SOGS were raised and included in response assessments and that led to some small gains. So the Cox's Bazaar response is notable for the inclusion of people with diverse genders and in particular within the coordination process here, including the protection sector as well as the gender and humanitarian action working group and beginning in 2022 a specific gender diverse populations working group was started. So there are two CSOs, Bandu and Lighthouse Bangladesh, which are present in the protection sector and also the Gihau working group and Bandu is the coordinator of the gender diverse working group and so Bandu has also been funded to provide health and psychosocial support services from a facility near the Kaputolong camps and the UNHCR protection sector funding has also supported another facility for TECHNAF, which is in the south. While many challenges remain particularly around widening the scope for addressing issues of people within the LGBTIQ community beyond the hijra community and transgender women, the working Cox's Bazaar on gender diverse inclusion is really a bright spot within a somewhat bleak picture. So the third and final tool that I'd like to share is UN Women's Rapid Assessment Survey, which was used during the COVID pandemic and I'd like to share this tool because the first are really focusing on kind of smaller scale qualitative analysis and this one is for large scale it's a statistical analysis tool. So as we all are very familiar with during COVID traditional methods of data collection were disrupted. However, that data was still crucial for us to understand the changing dynamics and the impacts of the in particular on vulnerable communities. And so UN Women carried out a rapid assessment survey through SMS and they managed to reach over 17,000 respondents in seven countries across the Asia Pacific. And so the survey was followed up a couple of years into the pandemic this time using computer assisted telephone surveys to understand the short and medium term impacts of the COVID crisis on women and the countries profiled were Indonesia, Kiribati, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa and Tonga and they were chosen because they're often countries with very little data collected particularly on gender issues. The results of the survey had a number of important and statistically significant findings that the pandemic disproportionately pushed women out of jobs and this was due to the increased burden of unpaid care work at home that gender poverty gaps were exacerbated and additionally when they were analyzing the access to government support disparities changed depending on the country and context where some countries more women were accessing government support and in other countries more men were accessing government support. UN Women is building on this work that they pioneered during the pandemic to look for other creative ways to fill gender data gaps during the crisis. So for example, they're looking at using Quilt's AI tool which polls big data from social media platforms. This was also highlighted in the Pacific Islands and provided insights on the trends for seeking information about GBB service providers and showed what many of us here know that service providers who use Survivor Center approaches in their social media had higher reach and engagement. So I think this final example is really important because it highlights that we need to consider not only qualitative methods for gender analysis but also quantitative assessments. Data is really essential to inform our program programmatic responses but it's also very helpful for our advocacy efforts. I think I'm at all the time I have for today but I hope that provided some information on a few of the great tools that we have available to us to ensure that the most marginalized communities are not just included but are at the center of any humanitarian response. I'll hand it back to Sabrina to continue our sessions. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Joel. It's really interesting and I'm so excited myself to look to all the details. Unfortunately that we have limited time but let's see how we also compensate with sharing all of these findings. Our next panelist is Melissa. So we are moving to Afghanistan. Melissa is advisor with Care Afghanistan and co-chair of the Gender in Humanitarian Action Working Group. So Melissa, the new bands on women aid workers in Afghanistan came on top of the ongoing instability in the country. Further, depending on vulnerabilities of women and girls including of women staff that are so critical to agencies. Why is gender response programming critical in context like Afghanistan? Can you share any learning that could be applicable and can be used with others? Thank you. Thank you so much, Sabrin and thank you for the opportunity and I'm very glad to talk after Joel so that I can also highlight kind of a concrete example of how we've been using these tools. So hi everyone. My name is Melissa. So as Sabrin indicated I currently work for Care Afghanistan. I also co-chair of the Gihar Working Group and I've been working on gender in Afghanistan for almost six years. And before I start let me kind of set the scene in terms of what is the situation today in Afghanistan. For a little bit over two years since August 2021 we as humanitarian organization have been working under the new de facto regime in a context that became increasingly difficult when it comes to gender responsive programming. So just to list a few we have seen constraints on women's ability to travel. Today Afghan women are not allowed to travel if they're not accompanied by a Mahram or a chaperone, a male guardian which is usually the husband of the father or in some cases the son. We have seen gender segregation in the offices and the transportation and we of course have seen something that was largely covered by the media which was the ban on women at workers. Since December 2022 for NGOs and later on April for UN agencies there was a ban on working in the humanitarian sector with the exception of the health and education sectors. So with all of these constraints how could we as humanitarian community respond and how can we as the Gihar Working Group support our partners to ensure that they have the necessary guidance and tools to do gender responsive programming. There are a large number of tools that I'll touch on a little bit later but the main one and the most important one that I really want to highlight are the minimum standards on gender responsive programming. This came as a result of the visits of the interagency standing committee to Afghanistan in January so following the first ban on women at workers in which we had discussion around you know how what should be the minimum standards that all organizations working in Afghanistan should respect to make sure that they continue reaching women and girls. So what we did in the Gihar Working Group is we embarked on weeks and dozens of consultations in the country we talked to national NGOs international NGOs, UN agencies to our gender colleagues protection colleagues, field officers to kind of map what are the risks when it comes to gender responsive programming given the huge challenges that we are dealing with. We worked very closely of course with the other thematic working groups so AAPE accountability to affected people PSCA on the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse and disability inclusion. So it was not just gender it was also these other cross-semitic areas and together we developed these minimum standards as a checklist to that organizations when they are designing projects implementing projects can look at what are the steps and what are the kind of minimum standards that they have to follow and how do we make sure that they are able to actually integrate it into their programming. So of course these tools were translated in local languages and then we started working on dissemination one of the important mechanism that we implemented is strengthening our relationship with the cluster system and our partners so for example today each cluster in Afghanistan has a gender focal points and they work very closely with the GIA as kind of a core group and it allows us to better translate the work we're doing for food security, for shelter for protection and make sure that organization are better equipped to use these minimum standards. Of course for joint work or joint work with AAPE, PSCA disability inclusion was kind of a core also in making sure that organization are able to use these tools. Another key point in terms of dissemination is making sure we did not just present these tools at you know Kabul level in cluster meetings because we know that you know all of these meetings happen online they're usually in English so there was really an effort to go to the regions as well to travel to the east to the north to the south and to do kind of like long workshop when we present we get feedback, we answer the questions and as in many countries I'm sure there's always some type of disconnect between the capital and the region so there was a lot of effort in that sense. And then when it comes to the implementation we also made sure that we do not just set minimum standards but we also give the guidance that organization needs and that takes a few forms I'll give you a few examples we did research on HR practices on the recruitment and retention of women head workers, how do we make sure that the advertisement recruitment processes are women friendly how do we make sure the work space is women friendly we had advocacy messages for the de facto authority so that organizations know what statistics what kind of what are useful arguments that resonate with de facto authorities to get women colleagues to continue working we had guidance on how to engage women of the communities in a way that is safe for them and safe for us and for the projects. We did studies on accountability to women and girls in terms of what are the best way that African women and girls prefer to give feedback or to report complaints we did paper on the mental health of women head workers in terms of how can we best support our women colleagues in this incredibly challenging environment we also worked a lot on women head organizations so that we can do advocacy on their behalf and maybe the last one that it's an ongoing work we're working on is a twinning approach as well which is how do how can we make sure that international and national organization can partner so that there's a true capacity building component and not just subcontracting national NGOs one last point I know I'm coming up to time we were also able to work with a pool fund in Afghanistan it's called the AHF the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund the GIHA and thematic group all involved in reviewing the proposal but this year the endorsement of the thematic working group became mandatory so we were actually able to review all proposal that went to the pool fund and work with the organization based on this minimum standards to ask okay how are you gonna make sure that you are actually assessing women and girls how you make sure that your mechanism or you know woman friendly how do you make sure you know like it was really really interesting for us to see you know where organization we're coming from and to really offer them this very concrete support proposal for each project in terms of how can they improve their project designs so of course there's much more to do in terms of monitoring and tracking and we can talk about that maybe it's a bit later this was kind of a good example of how we managed to adapt in this extremely challenging environment unfortunately in a reactive manner as a reaction of these challenges but I hope this is something that maybe can inspire other country context to look into how they can kind of better improve this type of gender responsive programming minimums so I'll stop here and I'll share my contact information as well in the chat if anyone wants to be in touch on that and I'll also be happy to take questions at the end. Thanks Sabrina and over to you. Thank you so much Melissa it's really interesting great to have all of this doable recommendation and I'm sure that you will be reached by a lot of people to know more our next speaker is Ann she's the program manager of Somali Livelihood Initiative and disability organization so Ann persons with disabilities are among the most vulnerable during crisis facing increased risk and barriers to protection often in conflict and disaster we see lack of proactive measures similar to the unique needs of persons with disabilities can you share any innovative approach and best practices that have demonstrated success in ensuring the safety, dignity and rights of persons with disabilities in south and central Somalia Yes thank you so much Sabrina and thank you Joel and Melissa for setting the pace in this conversation and hello to you all joining in today I'm certainly honored to speak on this crucial topic as you had my name is Ann and I'm the program manager at we call it leadership in short first I'll start by shedding some light on the current context of persons with disabilities in Somalia at large our data is very much limited but it is estimated that the percentage of people with disabilities in Somalia is likely around 20% or more is higher than the global average of 16% in some statistics in fact indicate that around 4% of Somali youth are living with disabilities and these numbers tend to be higher among internally displaced persons and economic migrants one of the major courses of impairments in Somalia is the presence of landmines everywhere also what is known as explosive remnants of war which they say results in roughly around 7000 new disabilities every year which is very high and you may guess that children are very especially vulnerable to this so it is also crucial to highlight that due to the limited data there's limited awareness among policymakers community leaders and service providers even though the current constitution grants equal rights to persons with disabilities and prohibits discrimination and say these provisions are often not effectively enforced and there's also significant stigma around disability in Somali society and also Africa at large which often makes it a very sensitive and a taboo topic I can go on and on about the challenges but despite the obstacles some remarkable progress has been made in Somalia for instance Somalia enacted the national disability agency bill in 2018 the government also ratified the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities in 2019 and in 2021 they launched the national disability agency so I would say this is remarkable progress so I'll proceed to answer your question on innovative approaches and best practices that have demonstrated success in our scope as an organization our experience has taught us that having an inclusive disaster preparedness and response plan is key we are aware how prone to natural disaster this part of the world is especially the Horn of Africa particularly disasters pertaining to droughts and floods and outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and this usually wasn't by man-made disasters brought about by conflicts ongoing conflicts within the country so within our operations as an organization we have a risk assessment plan alive by reviewing it and updating it every quarter and we do this in collaboration with the communities and this informs our decision making crisis processes during crisis and it's important to highlight that the input from persons with disabilities within the communities we target is taken into account also given our limited resources we have adopted as our best practice training and working with community-based response focal points these are volunteers who live within the community they keep records of persons with disabilities within their specific IDP camps and during disasters they tend to be the immediate responders who rally together in ensuring persons with disabilities are accounted for see we have trained them to consider the mobility communication and support needs of the persons with disabilities in the database we've also been working very closely with community groups that is women groups and youth groups to create awareness and break the stigma of persons with disabilities in most of Somalia and also various other parts of this continent family members would rather keep their relative with a disability hidden away which limits their participation in society so through awareness creation within our target communities we have seen an improvement in the participation and representation of persons with disabilities in these groups in fact in these groups they tend to air out what they need during humanitarian aid responses and this ensures that their voices are heard. And because we also aim at building the capacities of these people persons with disabilities as an organization we have invested resources at a local training college known as Bismarck College where persons with disabilities in our program are held to enroll they acquire basic adult literacy skills basic computer skills which are tailored to their specific needs they also acquire a cabin tree addressing among other technical skills and to cement this we are currently working towards creating a peer support network for these individuals in our college programs it is our best practice we are borrowing from elsewhere and its implementation is still at its infancy stages the main aim of this is to ensure that they stay motivated to participate in societies even after acquiring these skills so that they can break the stigma of disability as an organization also we have formed referral networks with the health sector which is key for assisting persons with disabilities to acquire specialized treatment or even cancelling services so every biannual we do screening and referral and treatment where we can response a few people and this is driven by our in-house clinical officer and as part of our food security and nutrition pillar we have so far supported 5000 households with food assistance to meet the nutrition needs of the children with disabilities and every year during in we host a celebration for these children with disabilities so we can share together in hope and also bring stigma lastly it's important for me to mention that Libosom takes part in Somalia's protection cluster food security cluster and health cluster and in this cluster to continue to raise awareness and advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities in Somalia so lately during this cluster meetings we are advocating for capacity building for humanitarian workers and government personnel since they are among the first responders during crisis and are also key stakeholders in policy development we are also advocating for accessible infrastructures in common spaces such as schools and hospitals so that people with disabilities can access these spaces and also the inclusion of mobility equipment as part of the humanitarian response kit is so to conclude I need to emphasize that addressing the issues of persons with disabilities in Somalia requires the involvement of everyone from citizens to policy makers to key decision makers in government this will not only enrich our data on disability but also increase awareness of other effective policy enforcement and bring support from both local and international actors so that we can make meaningful strides towards ensuring the safety, dignity and rights of persons with disabilities in times of crisis thank you and over to you Sabri thank you so much and I echo your voice and it's really important that it's responsibility for all of us a great effort thank you so much let's go also now to listen to Grace Grace is the founder of the Inclusive Friends Association that's focused on data driving organization that works to remove the barriers that limit the full participation of Nigerians with disabilities and also promote inclusive development around the world what violence means to women with disabilities how women and girls in Nigeria experience violence in time of violent conflict and relative peace there is a growing recognition of the need to protect and promote the rights of women and people with disabilities especially in time of insecurity and violent conflict the violence of women and girls with disability experience during violent conflict form a continuum with their experience during time of relative peace they are more likely to experience gender-based violence but less likely to speak up, be believed and access services you have been supporting them Grace and witnessing their realities in central north Nigeria for many years can you share their voices with us today thank you Grace hello can you hear me alright perfect can you open your camera thank you so much good afternoon everyone it's afternoon here in Nigeria so I would like to take the perspective of sharing testimonies mine and the voices of world girls and women with disabilities in Nigeria faced and are still facing in the face of conflict in Nigeria so starting with my own story I live in a community where it used to be a mixed community of different religion dominantly the Muslim and the Christian religion and one of the crisis erupted and just a minute let me shut my door the baby is crying just a minute alright so I started by saying that I live in a community where it's mixed religion both the Muslim and the Christian and of course other religion were co-existing and during one of the years that the crisis erupted it became so violent and so wild that because it was predominantly populated by the Christians the Muslims suffered the attack more and directly behind my house was owned by a Muslim and while the crisis was ongoing it's on fire but because we were in my own house and we didn't know which of the house was on fire and the smoke invaded my house the whole house was filled with thick black smoke we actually thought that it was our own house that was on fire and we had to run out and before running out the people from the house that was set on fire the Muslim community scaled over the fence into our own house and when they joined us we were all hidden in my house when the smoke became so unbearable and we had to run into another neighbor's house and for me as a woman with a disability with a physical disability on a wheelchair at first people started running out and didn't pay that much attention to me everyone was running for safety because we thought it was a house that was set on fire and I think in the process of running someone remembered that they had left grace behind and they quickly came and wheeled me like I wasn't even ready I didn't pick up anything, any of my needs supplied to wheel that of the house into another neighbor's house the house wasn't even accessible but you know they managed to get me into that house just for safety's sake so I wanted to say that when mechanisms used to run communities of risk and danger that exist I mean they do not reach out to women and girls with disabilities like we didn't even know what was going to happen and then I was caught up in that same experience and we stayed in that house for hours I didn't have any form of hygiene materials that I would need to just clean myself up eventually the house wasn't accessible but it was the quickest place for safety that we had to hide and we all were stuffed in one small room for hours and hours until safety came and we were able to go back home but I'm going to also share experiences of other women with disabilities from the study that we carried out in other communities within the same state so this is coming from a story of another woman her name is Aisha from one of the local government areas in Plato state she says that for her she's a deaf woman and she sits in the room and she cannot hear what is happening because she is deaf when fighting comes everyone saves their life so I'm quoting her exactly as she said it she said when fighting comes everyone saves their life she sits in the room and doesn't even know what is happening so she's calling on their community to learn to love one another because when there is love in existence people with disabilities will be reached out to in the face of any form of conflict another woman with disability who also shared her experience was that the community had received warning that a raid was about to take place so the community members placed the people with disabilities and the elderly elderly in which in a room where they were all locked you know how it is when people with disabilities and the elderly cannot flee or flee very fast so the people of the community came together brought the elderly and persons with disabilities locked them in a safe room while they all escaped and they did that not intentionally but they did that hoping that it would save those people but unfortunately when those who were attacking came they set that particular house on fire that house that contained both the elderly and persons with disabilities this is a story of one of the women who she was affected indirectly or directly by the process of this fire and I just want to say that this act was not deliberate you know it wasn't deliberate it was just a way of escape for the people of the community but they thought it was safer to lock the elderly persons and persons with disabilities in a room thinking that they would be safe but unfortunately these people lost their life so globally women with disabilities are twice as likely to experience domestic violence and of course other forms of gender based violence and up to three times more likely to experience rape by strangers or acquaintances than women without disabilities I mean those of you who work within the disability community I know that you know this for a fact that during time of conflict there is this increase of rape there is increase of kidnap and all of that another story I'm going to share is the story I mean that that really touched me is that a visually impaired woman she was cooking when everyone started you know shouting that the community is being raided the community is being invaded of course she couldn't get her kids so she started running she wasn't running with her white cane she wasn't running with a guide visually impaired woman just running to whatever direction she felt was maybe safe and there was nobody to help her instead of her running towards safety she ran into the hands of the enemy and she was raped in the process of that and while she was being raped she passed out and of course the people who attacked thought she was dead and left her on the floor where she was raped eventually when she woke up she found herself in the hospital and I mean subsequently in the course of while peace was being restored to the community she discovered she was pregnant while she was rich she was pregnant and of course nothing could be done because she has become a victim of rape and she shared her story till that point where we met with her she says she's still fidget she still gets very very scared she hears the voices of people so in terms of trauma she's still very very much traumatized another story I would share is in one of those conflicts that happened in one of the LGS also was that when the headsmen attacked so what happens in that part of the North Central Nigeria is that there's always farmer-header attack and there's religious attack as well so this particular one is a farmer-header's attack and the woman mentioned that when they all ran to the farm for safety out of fear for being killed and you know they weren't armed but they were used within the community who were protecting but they were not well armed as well so of course she was also raped and other numerous women who were there as well were raped and this I mean the stories goes on and on and on but just to say that even while we were conducting the research in that community after we were done and left the community the night of the day we went to conduct this research that same night that community was attacked we didn't get an early warning signal when we went into those community and while we left the community was attacked and two of the people that we engaged to get this information from two of those people were killed they were both deaf and what happened to them was that they ran towards the danger because they didn't hear the gunshot they didn't hear the alarm so I'm going to conclude by saying that we as a national community and then of course international community national community donors agencies even the US agency should I mean we should come up with mechanisms that would that would be inclusive so my call is that we should stop framing mechanisms without preparing women with different types of impairment in mind so this must change our girls and women with disabilities should students you know continue to suffer rape or continue to suffer harm because early warning mechanisms or every other form of interventions are not designed to capture every type of disability thank you Grace it's very strong and touching stories yeah I hope that as after this session I think it's important to think a lot how we are responsible to take actions toward being more inclusive thank you so much for sharing this I think during the questions also we can hear more of recommendation that you would like to share let me go to our panelist Rawan Rawan is a global age inclusion specialist working with help age Rawan a growing body of evidence suggests that older people constitute significant and growing proportion of those affected by humanitarian crisis and disaster and are neglected by humanitarian protection assistance therefore there is very needs and capacities are often overlocked in an emergency response creating protection risks how can a humanitarian actors ensure that older people with and without disabilities are included in the response thank you thank you Sabreen for this question thank you colleagues for your valuable inputs on this very important topic as Sabreen mentioned my name is Rawan Khouri and I'm the global age inclusion specialist working with help age international and also supporting the global protection cluster on age inclusion thank you all for coming today and participating in this panel discussion first let us highlight that the global population is aging much faster than in the past and this is the result of continued decline in fertility and increased life expectancy rates the global projected proportion of the population that are aged 60 and above is expected to increase from around 13% to 22% by the year 2050 population aging started in high income countries it is now low and middle income countries that are experiencing the greatest change by 2050 80% of the world's population over the age of 60 will be living in low and middle income countries where disasters are more likely to occur and their effects are felt more severely an older person is defined by the United Nations as a person who is in many countries and cultures and contexts aging cannot be looked at only a number but rather needs to be understood in its complexity and its interaction with other dimensions such as gender and diversity globally 46% of those who are over the age of 60 have a disability this suggests that disability increases with age if we also look at the gender aspect figures will also tell us that older women have higher rates of disability compared to older men what does this tell us? this tells us that there is a need to use an intersectional approach throughout our work during emergencies and disaster to understand people's experiences in forced displacement and how they are impacted differently it is very important to recognize the intersection gender and disability to help us think about the impact on the older person the family and the community and the overall protection and inclusion of older persons humanitarian actors are committed to provide assistance and protection solely based on need and without discrimination yet older people are routinely excluded from humanitarian responses despite being among the most vulnerable reasons for that revolve around barriers that prevent an older person from having full and equal access and participation in society let us discuss the different types of barriers for example misconceptions of older age can sometimes fuel negative attitudes and discrimination which may encourage some to think that older people are not a priority to help these are considered attitudinal barriers and they are the root cause of discrimination and exclusion another type is the physical or environmental barrier that includes the lack of accessible transportation and facilities such as the presence of stairs or the absence of ramp and this will prevent older people from accessing services moreover if information on humanitarian services is provided in only one format or language it can exclude many older people and this is known as communication barriers finally the absence of laws, policies and regulations that prevent older persons from participating in society is what is known as institution barriers to overcome the barriers that we have discussed and in order to promote the inclusion of older persons in the humanitarian context a set of standards were designed to help address the gap in understanding the needs capacities and rights of older people the humanitarian inclusion standards for older people and people with disabilities provide guidance across all areas and at all stages of the response to ensure that older people are not left behind and to emphasize that people are at the center of the response ensuring meaningful access safety and dignity the guidance includes a lot of nine standards and sector-specific standards that can be used as guidance for programming and also as a resource for training and advocacy particularly for influencing organizational policies and practice to be more inclusive all the sector-specific standards we have discussed they include key actions guidance notes, tools and resources all structured around three main areas of inclusion data and information management identifying and removing barriers and third participation of older persons and strengthening their capacities now just quickly for a few minutes let's try to apply those three key areas of inclusion to the protection sector so looking at the first key area of inclusion focusing on data and information management protection actors need to think about adapting protection assessments and monitoring tools to collect and analyze data that is disaggregated by sex, age and disability and also to try and collect information on the protection risks and capacities of older persons for the second area of inclusion which focuses on barriers we need to ensure that older people are always protected from risks of physical and psychological harm and that they have access to protection services this could be achieved through building awareness among staff community partners on the increased risks that are faced by older persons and on as colleagues mentioned strengthening case management and referral mechanisms to ensure that older people at risk are identified and referred and we always need to remember that we need to address and monitor the barriers that we have just previously discussed and finally for the third key area of inclusion which focuses on participation it focuses on older people participating in prevention and empowerment activities and this could be achieved through using a range of communication channels and methods to ensure that older people have access to such information and such activities and to always try and include older persons with and without disabilities in community based protection activities in conclusion having such standards will play a very important role in strengthening accountability and empowering agencies to reach all older persons and as Sabreen mentioned there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that older people constitute a significant proportion of those affected by humanitarian crisis as well all of our colleagues mentioned it is our responsibility again as human actors to ensure the protection and inclusion of older persons in prevention and responsive actions thank you very much and Sabreen. Thank you so much Rawan I think it's really important to look to how attitude and perception really rooted and impacting the way that the humanitarian actors are building their response it's very interesting for further discussions maybe we are opening now the floor for questions please raise your hands to indicate your interest to ask any question or you can use the chat we have the first hand raised me sorry if I'm spelling the name Rumi please just unmute yourself thank you very much yes you're right I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to actually be here today and I was really interested in the presentations I just wanted to talk about a few challenges linked to the approach that we've been talking about I think when it comes to technology particularly with regards to disabled individuals this can really cause a great level of challenge within our own national context when it comes to trying to really roll out our activities we found that technology can become a real barrier another issue I wanted to talk about for us specifically we find that there's a lack of resources specifically linked to adopting and implementing a response that is sensitive to people who are in the older age bracket I think there is a bit of a lack of information I'd like to really thank our partners who've talked about this already we are really looking to examine some of the standards some of the information that has been shared and we hope that we're going to be able to actually try to bring in some of these elements with regard to our community protection efforts we need to also I think work on sharing information because there can be real barriers here as well as we've identified I think it's important to look at disabled individuals inclusion in structures that we're actually working with advocacy actions and how can we actually make sure we share information to allow these individuals to be included I think this is really important for our community I just wanted to share these ideas today thank you thank you so much it's really important information and access I don't know if one of the panelists would like to say any remarks around this the barrier of communication and sometimes really sometimes communication creating a huge barrier and accessing information is one of the big gaps that the humanitarian actors is sometimes missing some yes yes thank you thank you me for raising this point and as we discussed yes communication has become a barrier especially for older persons and persons with disabilities and technology has been used recently to communicate certain messages during humanitarian crisis and disasters and sometimes we need to think and keep in mind that we need a diverse of communication channels to ensure as you mentioned the inclusion of persons with disabilities and older persons and I guess the only way we could ensure that is by asking persons with disabilities and asking older persons in different contexts what's the most suitable way for us to communicate the message to those because some older persons and persons with disabilities live in rural areas sometimes in hard to reach areas as well and so consulting with them is a key area to ensure their participation and to ensure that the message is well communicated thank you thank you Rawan we have Betty please unmute yourself hello thank you this is Betty yes thank you very much and I'm in charge of protection and safe guarding in Goma in the eastern part of the city I wanted to just come back to the issue of gender how we can actually involve women in particular in what we're doing this issue of integration does raise quite a few challenges for us because in terms of our communities we have a real social imbalance and I think this means that when we go into our communities and we want to work with men and women we find that there's a real gap we try to attain this balance but the context the situation in the zones we're working within doesn't allow us to do this so there are lots of activities we're trying to actually organise for skill strengthening and participation we're coming up again and again against this problem of an imbalance so this is just a reflection I wanted to share today so I think in terms of thinking of specific activities there might be more work to be done in terms of really trying to bridge this gap if we can't bridge this gap I think we're always going to be fighting against this kind of imbalance of participation I also wanted to say something in terms of disabled individuals I think this is also a key issue for us we've already carried out various trainings I've gone through trainings myself with regard to this issue we're trying to really work on this inclusion and also making sure that we cover all sorts of different disabilities we often I think focus on motor difficulties so we think about for example access etc in a physical sense but we perhaps forget a little bit about individuals who might have more of learning disability and access in that sense I think there is a gap as the speaker said so this is something I really found resonated with me thank you very much it's really a very important point to be raised and to think around Melissa would you like to give any recommendation about how to ensure targeting women while the context sometimes is preventing to achieve this prevalence of having 50-50% between women and men in such complex communities or context thank you Sabrin I mean this is a very tricky question in the sense like as you say if I take the example of Afghanistan it's so much easier in a way to reach male beneficiaries and for example we've seen cases where even we are asked not to have women beneficiaries just because it's so complex or culturally socially it's not necessarily accepted for them to go on their own to a distribution if they don't have a guardian to accompany them what we unfortunately what we have been using mainly is a percentage asking organization to dedicate a percentage of their projects of the aid they're going to deliver to women especially to women headed households and the only thing we can do beyond that is just making sure that we offer them the guidance they need to reach these women beneficiaries to which this woman headed household especially for example on how to engage women for the communities so that they can be involved in assessments or maybe relying on third parties companies from the private sector to support assessments when women head workers are not able to participate directly so we've kind of had to be as flexible and creative as we could and I wish I had a better answer but it's kind of like we've just had to work with the context thanks thank you Manika Hello everyone this is Manika Rahal woman protection and empowerment coordinator in Lebanon for working at IRCC so just wanted to share with you some tricky key points that I see is working on inclusion and ensuring the inclusive of people with disabilities in our program and targeting more people with disabilities the first point is like partnering with grassroots organization where their mandate and their vision is working with people with disabilities and this will be also with the contextualization of the tools and materials that has been used under IRCC's intervention because not all the curriculum the tools and the activities cannot be done without being adapted to their intervention and their capacity in addition selecting strategic partners where it's regardless of the funding requirements those partners who are aiming to include people with disabilities will have the mission of building the capacity of other staff members and local partners staff on how to be inclusive so it will be in the mentality of the staff to ensure that we are inclusive in our approach as well and try our best to have like assessment on our safe spaces and our activities to be as inclusive as we are just on one comment and specifically maybe reflecting this specific webinar it would be better if we have an inclusive approach as well for us as partners and as organization implementing in the field because we should be the one inclusive for our staff as well we should be advocating for people with disability to work in our organization and that will allow them to have a space where they can be more vocal in their community that those NGOs and those I NGOs are more inclusive towards people with disabilities and other diversity and inclusion so for that it would be better to have like for example sign language part in this session so people with disability could access this webinar and to feel free that they are able to learn from such sessions as well. Thank you so much for having this opportunity Thank you so much Monica it's really very important thank you for raising the accessibility I think inclusion is the process that we all are taking so this will be taken into account for sure and will be carried for the coming forum let me ask Hakim please please Yes Hello everyone Yes This is me Hakim from South Sudan I work for disabled agency for rehabilitation and development it is a national organization that is focused on the issues that are affecting people with disabilities more especially in the humanitarian work and the conflict affected areas that we are in in South Sudan so I'm very happy to be part of this important meeting today and I've learned a lot in comparison to our situation Yes hello I'm also a person with disabilities and I'm working for this organization as executive director based on on my experience in South Sudan most of the humanitarian agencies are actually on the ground and based on our assessment on the inclusion based on humanitarian service to affected areas both affected by conflict and natural disasters we finally see that most of the most excluded victims of these conflicts and natural disasters like blood are children with disabilities women with disabilities which have actually suffered in silence there are no even areas where to for them to raise their concerns because they are just considered as people to be served but not to add voice voices into planning and implementation also or some of the humanitarian services so with this our organization is only operating in one of the states as South Sudan is comprised of 10 states and under this state it has been in conflict for the last 12 years because there were a lot of inter-communal conflicts and these national conflicts that has been actually turned the country of fact and as we speak we have a good number of persons with disabilities who are under served because based on the program designs some of the programs are designed from far from where these people are in having forgotten some of the challenges that may even face them most especially accessibility to the distribution areas this is where you can get even people with disabilities are not having access to the distribution sites because of the mobility to those places and also some may not even have proper information about where and when to go for distribution sites and most especially those who are visually and hearing empires including those with physical disability who work on wheelchairs so these people always suffered in silent and based on our organization we have been actually making a lot of about advocacy whereas we also target the government and humanitarian organizations where some of the humanitarian organizations who have an inclusive policies come out and responds but there are some other agencies who have some of the emergency response that may even not allow them to even reveal their plans so with the site you get this population is actually underserved based on humanitarian services such as education in emergencies health and also with the women with disabilities they don't even access some hygiene and sanitation materials that are being distributed where distribution sites is not close to them we get this situations is actually affecting the most and this forum the best forum that we can even get an experience from other countries like Somalia and Nigeria where some of my colleagues actually narrated some of the stories that has touched my heart and in comparative to situations that they are in we have a lot of stories many times would have been allowing us share more stories about the life of persons with disabilities otherwise thank you for this time thank you so much I'm sure that there is a lot to be discussed there is a lot of stories that can be discussed unfortunately we have very limited time let me just call Etob I know that you are facing issues to raise your hands so please you share that you have a contribution but please let's take maybe two minutes per question or remarks to be able to listen also to Sabah thank you Giaikulei thank you Giaikulei colleagues I want to speak in French because I want to give a response to my French colleagues who have speak here before me related to community participation women participation in persons with disability thank you I just wanted to add an answer to the two concerns you talk about for women living with disability on the basis of AGP they are a French speaking colleagues every program every project that you want to fulfill the community must be in the center of this if the community understands their role they understand they perceive their role they will facilitate actions with other members who are the most vulnerable in terms of accessibility in terms of actions and this is the basis for every project you need to understand that every activity it's not only a project they have processes they have phases it will take months but you must identify the leaders the people in charge to whom you can get support in order to mobilize other people especially women in regions where there is a lot of violence if we do not have leaders if we don't have people in charge therefore it will be difficult to have added value you know and the women will not feel in trust they will not be able to move about this is the basis to get these elements same with budget when the community is involved in the interaction of expenses in terms of expenses to travel the community can help for travel and even for those who have disabilities essentially it's important to work with the community with the community structures which are existing in order to facilitate all the interactions all the activities that you have it's very important for AGP it's very it's a process it's not going to happen overnight for AGP you have obstacles and do not give up it takes time in order to get to your outputs and I think that if you want us to exchange more with you, their colleagues we can share that but think about sustainability think about the community structures which are existing overall this is my sharing and I can share more in the chat thank you so much it's really valued inputs and feedback unfortunately we are running the time to maybe I will take the last question or remark from Samuel and then we will listen to Sabah and Amjad Samuel Sam ok so let me go maybe to introduce you to Sabah Sabah is an inclusion ambassador in Syria how are you Sabah, thank you very much because you attended with us we would like to ask you what is your opinion what is your opinion what is your opinion what is your opinion what is your opinion what kind of recommendations can you give to those working in the humanitarian field as someone with experience from Syria good day everyone allow me to present myself quickly my name is Sabah I'm very happy to participate with you today in this meeting so I come from Syria I suffer from a mobility handicap or disability in my lower limbs as a result of a medical mistake I work as an ambassador for people with disability for the past 8 years in the organization called Humanity and Integration under the ambassador program I would like to talk more about the suffering of women with disability and what's the perception of the different difficulties they face in their day to day life as a woman with disability I know much about these difficulties I would like to talk about the basic protection needs of women and girls with disability in general terms we can say that women and girls with disability are subject to violence in their day to day life by members of their families perhaps by their relatives their husbands and they suffer from abuse by some individuals who are basically taking over and controlling their lives leaving them no agency over their life over their education over marriage or even over having a life that's simply free and independent at the same time there are other problems and difficulties that women and girls with disability suffer from specifically related to their reproductive freedom and health many of them are forced to early marriages and forced pregnancies they are ultimately also deprived of their children as a result of this kind of early marriage and forced pregnancy as a result we do need to work more on promoting the level of community awareness in order to ensure that these women and girls with disability have the possibility to enjoy their full rights and to have equal opportunities with other people and of course this is what we always ask active humanitarian stakeholders to work on to sensitize women and girls with disability about the need to report cases of abuse and violence and to protect them once they report these cases at the same time it's important to enable these women with disability within their society and community to lead an independent life and this can be enabled by providing them with the necessary work opportunities that are compatible with their types of disability because they also suffer from the risk of poverty as a result of the lack of job opportunities low wages and the increased living bills of people with disability at the same time it's important to enable women with disability by providing them with the adequate kind of employment and by providing them with the necessary facilities and the proper referral mechanisms in addition to promoting the level of accountability for women and girls the vivals of violence and to promote the kind of protection that they are receiving thank you thank you very much thank you very much , you're wonderful Thank youand maybe we can ask , I see that you are raising your hand to have maybe the final words for our session and we get say thank you for everyone. Please You can raise up points which is when we speak about the accessibility from protection perspective when we're here in the field or here and there we only hear about like physical disability sorry about physical accessibility and we cannot hear about like accessibility to information and how to reach information and better communication. This is number one and then like when we install and put in place like monitoring and evaluation system content mechanism and feedback mechanism it will be enhancing our work and also I can add when there is a planning for HRP or any programming not only to put up you know this is like what I was thinking not only to put in place like a take a text or a cell for inclusion disability or what services but only like you know thinking about better wider space for inclusion disability in the humanitarian action. I can only I can also said or mentioned something about in some operation not only people with disabilities are forgotten or even overlooked but some in some other process they are stigmatized. They are shy to say that we have a disability here and there and how the community can even accept them which is an an important issue from protection perspective the linkage between this and the awareness raising that's it thank you. Thank you Amjad I know that Al-Ahmar do you want to to conclude or to say anything maybe one or two minutes before closing I'm so happy that all of you would like to to participate this is giving us a lot of go ahead with further sessions like this please. Hello thank you very much for your presentation very interesting very much. I was also going to touch on what Amjad said it's about the it's not just about the physical the physical disabilities are not only mobility it's also challenges with sight and hearing and the senses in general I think that's really important and we look at it and in our operation at least we've been looking at it even in in the materials in the IEC materials that we're putting out how are we going to reach people who need Braille or people who are hard of hearing these are all disabilities there are the silent disabilities true there's the invisible disabilities that people can't see but there's the ones that we see and we don't actually appreciate that they are that they do need to be addressed so it would be really good to see that we include the blood that those who are challenged with their sight challenged with their hearing challenged with other senses as well I think that's important it was good to hear Amjad touch on that thank you. Thank you so much I think with these messages we can carry to think more and more how we can be more inclusive I would like to thank you all this is a great opportunity also to hear from your experience from the field thank you for the panelists for joining us today and we hope to see you again in another forum inshallah and have a nice evening to all take care and