DRAC- Making it Work Project Women and Girls with Disabilities are invisible both among advocates for the rights of persons with disabilities, and those promoting gender equality and the advancement of women. They have limited access to education and are forced to cope with inadequate healthservices. In addition, their sexual and reproductive health issues do not receive the desired attention as their sexuality is ignored and their reproductive rights denied.
This proposed project will therefore, primarily focus on women with disabilities in order to address the steep difference in healthcare access for non-disabled women and access for male PWD compared to their female counterparts.
The #Making It Work# project will piggyback on the National Policy on Sexual and Reproductive Health of Persons with Disabilities especially Women and Girls with Disabilities to advocate for measures to be put in place to ensure access to health for WWD; by providing hospital facilities and diagnostic equipment that are physically accessible, appropriate and reasonable communication accommodations, healthcare professionals who are trained to serve people with disabilities, healthcare providers with the appropriate knowledge to handle disability issues and others.

The policy was developed through aparticipatory process led by the Federal Ministryof Health and the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development with strategic inputs from a broad range of stakeholders. Following the endorsement of the Policy by the Minister for Health, theNational Council on Health approved the Policy in June 2018, making it a working document of the Federal Ministry of Health.

This policy is the first of its kind and provides a policy and program direction to Government, Civil Society Organizations, Development Partners and the organized Private Sector on how to deal with reproductive health concerns of persons with disabilities especially women and girls. Although the document is developed with women and girls in mind, it is important to note that maleinvolvement including addressing reproductive health issues of men is implied and an integral part of this endeavour.
This proposed project therefore focuses on bringing this policy to life and making it work by initiating actions to ensure that it isadopted and implemented by stakeholders across board in order to ensure increased access tohealth for women and girls with disabilities.
This project will strengthen the capacity of women and girls with disabilities to take the lead in advocating for the implementation of the policy through the provision of appropriate, accessible health-care services and will educate healthcare professionals and a wide range of health sector stakeholders# disability inclusive service delivery as prescribed in the policy.

The project will also employ the strategy of innovation and experimentation to develop advocacy and service delivery solutions to improve access to SRH for women and girls with disabilities.

In order to promote synergy and inclusion, theprojectwillactively seek out collaborations and partnerships with existing SRHR networks by educating them on DISD and engaging them in the project