The Role of Context in Disability Intervention: Realist Evaluation of the Work and Respect Project from the Liliane Foundation

Abstract

All youth deserve the chance to take advantage of their rights. However, youth with a disability often experience poverty and socioeconomic exclusion, especially in low-income countries such as Kenya and Rwanda. The Liliane Foundation’s livelihood-centred initiative called the Work and Respect Project aims to teach youth living with a disability the skills and a trade to gain a livelihood and to make their community more understanding and inclusive of disability needs. This study used Pawson and Tilley’s (2004) Realist Evaluation to investigate how the intervention would interact with Kenya and Rwanda’s context, mechanisms, and proposed outcomes. Therefore, this study poses the following research question: Does the Work and Respect Project produce the desired outcome of livelihood improvement among youth with disability and disability inclusivity in Kenya and Rwanda? Further, do they change the existing mechanisms to do so? This study called for a content analysis of qualitative data in the form of reports, information sheets, letters, and qualitative monitoring and evaluation data collected by the LF. This thesis used a coding technique to answer the research questions. Codes were predefined and stemmed from concepts from RE, namely context, mechanisms, and outcomes. After this, the second coding round was inductive thematic coding from the first rounds of coding. The analysis used three predetermined codes and produced twelve thematic codes. Both societies exclude youth with disabilities, specifically socio-economically and educationally, primarily due to negative cultural perceptions of PWD. The activities implemented by the Work and Respect Project aimed to change these perceptions but differed specifically to fit in the context towards inclusive societies and empower the youth. After applying realist evaluation, the program theory concludes that the Work and Respect Project can change the context and influence mechanisms to create better, more inclusive societies in Kenya and Rwanda. This can be attributed to introducing disability education and sensitization training in these societies.