2025 is a special year for ADD International as we celebrate our 40th birthday.
For four decades, we’ve been working together – a global community of dedicated disability justice activists and passionate supporters – to advance disability justice and create a more inclusive world.
Over the past 40 years we have:
Worked directly in 17 countries
Including: Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana, Bukina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Mali, Sudan, Zambia, Tanzania, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Botswana, Angola, Mozambique and Malawi. We’ve also supported regional networks in many more countries in Africa and Asia.
Supported over 2,400 groups
We have worked with over 2,400 Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) and Self Help Groups, in many cases supporting disabled people to found and establish structures they led themselves.
To all our supporters, I want you to know that your support truly matters – more than you may ever realise. Because of your solidarity, women like me – who once had no voice in society – are now leading, organising, and driving change in our communities. Your support doesn’t just fund programmes; it fuels hope, dignity, and real transformation.
Aktar, Disability activist, Bangladesh.
In partnership with disability justice activists around the world, and with your support, we have achieved so much together over the last 40 years.
We have supported powerful disability movements; created connections between the disability movement and political power houses; challenged deeply embedded stigma, abuse and discrimination against people with disabilities; and supported the formulation and adoption of several important rights-based disability legislation and inclusive policies.
“To all supporters of ADD International: your support is not just a donation – it is a declaration that persons with disabilities matter, that our rights are not optional, and that our voices must be heard. Because of you, advocates like me are equipped to lead. Because of you, local organisations have the resources to push for change in their communities. Because of you, children with disabilities are getting a fairer chance to learn, grow, and thrive.“
Mashukura, Disability activist, East Africa.
It has been four decades since Chris Underhill founded ADD during a trip to Zimbabwe.
Chris bore witness to an event that no one expected.
He attended a meeting to mark the Year of the Disabled Person, which was organised and run by non-disabled people. Chris described how:
“The disabled participants all walked out. They were unhappy with how the meeting was going and so they held a separate meeting – to talk about what mattered to them, not be told what to talk about. It became obvious that something very important was happening. It was a moment in time. People with disabilities were creating their own organisations.”
Inspired by what he saw, Chris founded ADD International to support organisations that were led by disabled people.
“Disability is a revolutionary movement – about how disabled people can liberate themselves.”
Chris Underhill, ADD International Founder
Thank you
Thanks to your support and shared belief in this mission, thousands of disability justice activists, organisations and movements in 17 countries have flourished.
Today, however, we face a difficult moment. Disability rights and justice are under attack in the UK – and around the world. Now is a crucial moment to be together in solidarity with people with disabilities and make sure that the progress we have made is not reversed.
Working with organisations of people with disabilities is not just fair, it’s better.
We need to ensure that everyone is treated as a human being and we are giving them what they deserve, what they need. It shouldn’t be given as an act of pity or charity but as a matter of fundamental rights as a human being. I know there are enough resources, they just need to be distributed more fairly.
Fredrick Ouko, ADD International Co-CEO.
Share your story.
Help us celebrate 40 years by sharing your experience with ADD International.