LINC-Asia

LINC-Asia was launched in September 2016 to promote the joint venture for an inclusive society where all children with disabilities can enjoy their human rights in a dignified manner. For this, LINC-Asia tries to develop and implement projects which needs the most priority in the Asia region. As a first initiative, LINC Asia decided to work on a common proposal which focused on physical accessibility of the schools in the Asia region. This is in line with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 that speaks about ensuring inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.

The LINC-Asia project has two phases; the phase 1 of the project focused on the conduction of physical accessibility audit, the phase 2 is planned to focus on lobby and advocacy in order to improve the accessibility features of schools. The main learnings from the phase 1 was that, children with disabilities enrolment in schools needs to be promoted and therefore, reduce their dropout rate in public schools. Moreover, it was inferred that equal opportunities for participation needs to be created for children with disabilities through meaningful representation and by decreasing physical barriers in schools and communities.

The learning of the Phase 1 is included well in its position paper. These learnings are being considered in developing project for the Phase 2 of LINC Asia. Other works of the network includes developing and sharing newsletters, strengthening networks through regular communication and international representations through meetings and conferences. In future, LINC Asia plans to partner and collaborate with similar networks that can add value to its work.