Enablement

Huib Cornielje, director
Huib Cornielje was trained as physical therapist in The Netherlands and worked for 10 years in various rehabilitation programmes in South Africa. During his stay in South Africa he obtained a Master in Science as well as a Higher Diploma in Adult Education at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. After returning home in 1993 he obtained a Master in Public Health. Currently he is director of Enablement: and is involved in training, research and development in the field of disability and development. His main area of interest is Community based Rehabilitation. He contributed to sections of the new CBR Guidelines and reviewed the Guidelines in 2008. Huib is since 2008 permanent disability advisor for the Netherlands Leprosy Relief. Together with 2 others, he took the initiative to start the Dutch Coalition on Disability and Development and served the Board of DCDD for many years.

He is also working as lecturer Public Health at the University for Applied Sciences in Leiden.  More recently he became involved in the development of courses in Disability & Development at the VU University in Amsterdam.

 

Evert Veldman, staff member
“…Occupational therapists are about emancipation and enabling the participation in everyday meaningful occupations of all people who experience disabling conditions…” It is a sentence derived from the book Occupational Therapy without Borders, which reflects my professional background as an occupational therapist. My name is Evert Veldman. Working experiences from Netherlands and South East Asia have formed my conviction that participation in everyday occupations is one of the most powerful ways to help people overcome internal and external disabling conditions. From this perspective my mission is to connect people in order to promote Enablement of occupational participation.

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partners

Carin Rensen
Since 1985 working as physiotherapist in the Netherlands in different working environments e.g. hospital, nursing home, rehabilitation centres. At the moment working as physiotherapist and project leader to increase physical activities and sports in a centre for mentally and physically disabled people. Also worked in India and in two CBR projects in Malawi as project coordinator, rehabilitation officer, and trainer. After returning from Malawi in 2002 started a study anthropology and finished a Master in medical anthropology with a focus on disability in 2007 at the University of Amsterdam. Afterwards worked until 2009 as research fellow for The Royal Tropical Institute and Free University in Amsterdam on leprosy-related stigma in India. Since 2006 member of the CBR working group of the Dutch Coalition on Disability and Development.

 

Fiona MacLeod Budge
Promoting effective communication skills so that the voice of underrepresented and marginalized groups is heard, is a particular concern of mine. Working in a variety of health systems in New Zealand, Nigeria and Indonesia, has stimulated my interest in multicultural health settings. Interest in the disability field stems from years of work in New Zealand in both physical and psychiatric settings. Additionally, the close relationship I had for many years with a high level tetraplegic taught me the much about the realities of life being faced by people living in a world where many opportunities are denied, not only due to their physical impairments but due to environmental barriers that they confront daily. I have my own Communication and Training Methodology Consultancy firm www.to-the-point-consultancy and for the past few years have been privileged to work together with Enablement, and in particular Huib, co-facilitating Training of Trainers in Community Based Rehabilitation. Recently I completed a Masters degree in Medical Anthropology and Sociology, researching the effectiveness of community-led health promotion programmes to achieve behaviour change, and this has confirmed my belief in the merits of CBR to achieve a more inclusive and empowered life for all.

 

Han Verhoeven
Working towards change is what motivates me. Since 2000 I work with MDF, a management training and consultancy firm specialised in development cooperation. Since 2010 I’m also part of Enablement. And I have my own firm www.masra.nl. At MDF I’m the senior specialist in Training of Trainers and Facilitation skills. I certify professional facilitators for the IAF and am a certified coach myself. I’m a life long learner, am creative and innovative. My fascination for CBR  as a change strategy dates back to 1996-1999 in Chad, where I worked with Henk ( see his profile) and was responsible for the training of animators, did a gender program and designed the prevention program.  The resilience of the people with physical impairment we worked with had a lasting impact on my motivation.  It is also a joy to work again with Huib who guided me to become a Community Health Officer by training.

 

Henk van Apeldoorn
Enabling people to stand up and increase the grip on their lives and future, is the passion of my life. Early in my career I understood the need to influence Policy , through Lobby and Advocacy.  Which wasn’t always easy to combine with my desire to live and work at grass roots level in Africa. Perhaps we succeeded best in Chad where I lived with my family from 1996-1999. We went from village to village and trained 30 animators of self-help groups of Physically impaired people. We organized awareness campaigns and set up a small rehabilitation centre. Thirdly we accompanied an advocacy group who produced a weekly radio program and influenced  policy to the level that Chad became the first country with some decent  paragraphs on Disability in their Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.  I  love training and believe that the contextualization of the CBR guidelines will be a great step forward in making CBR work.  There where decisions are made, and at grassroots level.

 

Johan Velema
I like to work with small groups of motivated adults who actively participate in the training and learn by doing. I have conducted meetings & workshops with participants from all over the world. I enjoy cultural diversity and working together towards a common goal. From Senegal (in French) to Malaysia (in English), I have conducted workshops in which people learned how to evaluate a project. Other topics included Primary Health Care, Migration & Health, Planning & Management and Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR). For the past twelve years I worked in M&E of disability related programmes and, together with Huib, have developed new ways of looking at CBR and drawing out its essential principles. I firmly believe that Quantitative and Qualitative methods of data collection should be used in harmony so as to generate evidence that can be used to formulate or adjust plans and policies.

 

Marieke Boersma
After a course in rehabilitation and development from Huib during my physiotherapy training, I caught the CBR virus. As soon as I had enough work experience I left the Netherlands and started working in Ethiopia in September 2002. First to set up physiotherapy education and later to work in the field of CBR. I have been trained as a physiotherapist and a medical anthropologist and enjoy combining those two field in CBR. I currently work as a CBR consultant for LIGHT FOR THE WORLD, based in Ethiopia but supporting CBR work in various countries.

I have been working in collaboration with Enablement for several years now. Supervising students in research, contributing to the Enablement publication coming up, and giving CBR management training in Addis Abeba.

I am especially passionate to get the topic of child protection of children with disabilities on the agenda of organizations working in the field of disability, organizations working for children, and especially in CBR. I am looking forward to work as part of this new Enablement team with its large variety of experience and expertise.

 

Roelie Wolting
Since I started working in Asia in 1985 as a (pediatric) physiotherapist, I realised that building capacity of people is essential to enable change. Children with a disability usually did not get opportunities to develop and get education, often because of ignorance and cultural and religious beliefs.  When living in the early nineties in Indonesia I learned about CBR, became a trainer and learned to develop trainings and trainingmaterial. Vietnam (1997 – 2000) provided new opportunities to build capacity of people working in the field of disability and CBR, adapted to the needs and practice in Vietnam. I learned a lot and I did not leave this exiting field.  I contributed to the CAHD toolkit; worked together with Enablement on improving and developing new disability and development/CBR trainings in the Netherlands and abroad; as a CBR trainer and consultant I am involved in the development of CBR programs in different Asian countries, with different contexts. Including disability in development is the challenge for the next years.

 

Vera van Ek
Vera van Ek was trained as physical therapist in The Netherlands and as an acupuncturist in Switzerland and China. She has worked for more than 20 years in various rehabilitation programmes in Europe and Asia. Her strong interest in the work in less advantaged countries is reflected in the development of community-based approach in her project work. Empowerment and capacity building are major cornerstones of her work and Vera is specialised in design of general and tailor-made training programs. Currently she works as Disaster and Disability Coordinator for Handicap International in Nepal. She is associate member of Enablement, and is involved in CBR and training in the field of disability.

As a Disability Consultant she has been working for Handicap International in Somaliland, Society Aids Care in Hong Kong, Bangladesh Rehabilitation Centre for Trauma/Torture victims, LEPRA Bangladesh and is involved in rehabilitation programs in several leprosaria in China.

 

Hanke Drop
It is innovation and change processes I am deeply interested in. What motivates and inspires people? What cultural, religious, social, societal and economic background stimulates them to act like they do? And for daily praxis: how can we cooperate in a respectful way to build a society of inclusion?
As a physiotherapist, I have worked with non-insured patients; in (pediatric) rehabilitation; oncology and as a teacher in physiotherapy. During a short intermezzo I worked in Namibia. Here I was introduced into CBR, which struck me as a meaningful concept. Back in the Netherlands, I enjoyed cooperating with Enablement’s network in teaching activities, in building 'the Dutch Coalition on Disability and Development' (DCDD) and in constructing a unit for (applied) research in the field of disability studies. In the meanwhile I finished my study of Arabic language and Islam, worked in Higher Education and as a journalist. Currently I am the owner of drOpinie: consultancy in the field of diversity, Islam & the Arabic world. I am honoured to be an Enablement associate.