Young people with disabilities must shape policies that affect their lives

Rasak Adekoya, August 2025

As the world celebrates International Youth Day on 12 August, this is an important time to emphasise the need to include and empower young people with disabilities.

With 70% of Africa’s population under the age of 30, 51.9% of young people with disabilities are not in education, employment and training compared to 27.1% of young people without disabilities. Far too often, they are excluded from meaningfully participating in, contributing to, and benefiting from, their local economies. This is especially the case for young women with disabilities and those who live in rural communities.

About two decades ago, my life suddenly turned around when I lost my eyesight and joined the disability community. I lost my job because my employer felt that I could no longer be productive to the organisation. Several other organisations told me they would like to hire me, but that they lacked the culture and capacity to work with a person with disability. I attempted to start my own business but raising startup capital was a challenge. I found it difficult to access new skills due to a lack of accessible learning centres or facilitators delivering inclusive teaching.

But I overcame many of these challenges through attending a training centre for blind people, undertaking personal coaching, and being mentored by an HR professional to became active in the labour market. I am now helping to find and deliver solutions to economically empower other young people both with and without disabilities.

IT Bridge Academy students wearing traditional graduation caps and gowns.

Inclusive employment

Our employment programmes provide vocational and skills training to people with disabilities, so they are able to find work and be financially independent.

Our employment work
A man sitting in a wheelchair wearing a purple tunic and a pair of glasses.
Peter, an IT Bridge Academy graduate from Nigeria. Image © Sightsavers/Kazahzachat Kabantiok

Across several African countries, young people with disabilities are disproportionately underrepresented in the labour market. Data from the International Labor Organization’s labour force survey statistics reveals the gap between young people with and without disabilities in the proportion of youth who are not in education, employment or training: 26% to 20% in Ghana; 63% to 21% in Nigeria; 12.4% to 14% in Kenya; 52% to 27% in Tanzania; 78% to 33% in Senegal; and 17% to 15% in Uganda.

The contributing factors to these gaps include:

  • inequalities in access to skills, education and finance
  • misconceptions about disability leading to stigma
  • the prohibitive cost of reasonable accommodation including assistive devices
  • limited awareness of disability inclusive practices among employers and financial service providers on disability inclusion
  • most importantly, poor implementation of disability rights legislation.

At Sightsavers, we acknowledge these challenges. We know we can’t solve this alone, which is why we’ve adopted a multi-stakeholder labour market strengthening approach. We design our programmes in close collaboration with organisations of people with disabilities, young people with disabilities and employers, and work in partnership with governments and other labour market actors.

Through Futuremakers by Standard Chartered, we’re supporting thousands of young people with disabilities in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana and Pakistan to access employability and entrepreneurial skills. One of the success stories from this project is Maryanne in Kenya, who is excelling in her career and supporting other young people with disabilities using her IT skills.

We acknowledge the challenges people with disabilities face, and we know we can’t solve them alone.
Maryanne stands outside the UN building in New York during COSP-18.
Maryanne is now employed by EnableMe, an interactive platform that provides access to disability-related information, peer communities and digital services. Image © Sightsavers/Anya Bryan

With the global acceleration in digital transformation, we know that employers who are committed to inclusion are interested in hiring young people with disabilities with the relevant digital skills. This is why we set up the IT Bridge Academy for young people with disabilities in Kenya and Nigeria. Hundreds of students have graduated from these academies with their cyber security certification and developed other IT skills such as data analytics and product management.

In Zambia and Pakistan, through our innovation challenge, young people with disabilities have designed innovative business solutions to address climatic and socio-economic challenges in their communities. Many of them have started their own businesses and are hiring other people in their communities, including young people with disabilities, reducing unemployment.

Watch the video to hear from some of our IT Bridge Academy students.

Lydia, who is a person of short stature, braids a female customer's hair.
Hairdressing salon owner Lydia is one of 120 entrepreneurs involved in a project in Uganda. She’s received business skills training which has improved her professionalism and access to finances. Image © Sightsavers/Esther Mbabazi

Ensuring that the voices of young people with disabilities shape the policy that affects them is imperative. In Uganda as part of our work co-funded by the European Union, we are building the capacity of young people with disabilities to advocate for their rights.

We have supported the establishment of youth advocacy wings and trained them on leadership development, global and national legal frameworks, understanding of governance processes. This includes training on district planning processes, advocacy and policy engagement, and sustaining youth advocacy networks beyond project period. These increased skills mean young people have engaged in district planning process, enabling district leaders to understand disability-informed, decentralised governance strategies, especially those key to the economic development of young people with disabilities.

Looking at the large population of young people with disabilities in the countries where we work, we know that there is need to massively scale our reach to support hundreds of thousands more young people. But we cannot do this alone – which is where employers, development partners and potential investors come in. Together, we can nurture more young talent and tackle disability inequality.

We need to massively scale our reach to support hundreds of thousands more young people.

Author


Rasak Adekoya is Sightsavers’ technical adviser for economic empowerment.

 

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