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How we work

ADD International works from a human rights perspective and since 1985 has played a key role in facilitating disabled people to come together to make decisions about their own lives and to campaign for their rights; basic rights that most people take for granted such as family life, means of earning a living, education, basic healthcare and respect from other members of the community. 

ADD works in collaboration with disabled people’s organisations to encourage the country governments where we work to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and move as quickly as possible towards implementation.

ADD works with disabled people's organisations ranging from small village groups to large national federations.  Some disabled people’s organisations are made up of people with different disabilities, while others have come together through a shared experience, for example deaf people or albinos.

ADD’s eight Country Directors and their teams work directly with disabled peoples organisations and their democratically elected leaders. 

Leaders of disabled people’s organisations hold meetings with their members throughout the year to discuss their plans and aims.  The leaders attend annual meetings with ADD to plan and agree the next 12 months’ work and enter into formal partnerships.  This ensures that the needs of disabled people themselves determine ADD’s work.

ADD’s two aims are:

1. To enable rights-based organisations of disabled people to become effective, self-sustaining, democratic and representative membership organisations, able to carry out their work and to promote the rights of all disabled adults and children to full inclusion in society.
   
   
2. To work with disability rights organisations to influence policy makers and development organisations to include the rights and needs of disabled people in all their work and to encourage them to allocate resources for this.