Mainstreaming Gender and Disability Award

The Mainstreaming Gender and Disability Award celebrates organisations that have implemented impactful strategies or programmes to address the intersectional discrimination faced by women with disabilities, promoting their inclusion, empowerment, and economic participation. Women with disabilities experience multiple forms of exclusion due to gender, disability, and often other factors such as socioeconomic status. For example, disabled girls are frequently deprioritized for access to education, and women with disabilities are often excluded from development activities like income-generating programmes due to inaccessible designs or lack of targeted outreach.

For this award, “mainstreaming” refers to the intentional integration of gender and disability considerations into an organisation’s policies, programmes, and practices to ensure equitable access and opportunities for women with disabilities. “Disability programmes” encompass initiatives that enhance skills, provide employment opportunities, or remove barriers to participation for people with disabilities, with a specific focus on women.

This award recognises organisations that have either developed forward-looking strategies to foster inclusion of women with disabilities or implemented sustainable disability programmes that deliver measurable outcomes, such as enhanced skills, increased employment, or improved workplace accessibility. It honours systemic efforts to create inclusive environments where women with disabilities can thrive as valued contributors.

Criteria for Entries

To ensure entries align with the award’s objectives, submissions should provide detailed, evidence-based information addressing the following criteria:

1. Strategies for future disability inclusion
   • Describe specific strategies or planned initiatives to enhance the inclusion of women with disabilities in the organisation’s workforce or programmes.
   • Examples may include accessibility audits, partnerships with disability-focused organisations, or policies to prioritise women with disabilities in recruitment or training.
   • Provide a clear timeline, measurable goals (e.g., number of women to be reached, accessibility improvements), and plans for monitoring and evaluating progress.
2. Sustainable disability programmes
   • Detail programmes that have successfully enhanced skills or provided employment opportunities for women with disabilities.
   • Examples may include vocational training tailored for women with disabilities, job placement programmes, internships, or entrepreneurship support initiatives.
   • Provide evidence of impact, such as the number of women trained, jobs secured, skills acquired, or specific success stories of women with disabilities.
3. Workplace accessibility and inclusion
   • Describe measures taken to make the workplace or programmes accessible and inclusive for women with disabilities.
   • Examples may include physical accessibility improvements (e.g., ramps, adaptive technology), inclusive communication (e.g., sign language, braille), or flexible work arrangements tailored to disability needs.
   • Provide data on accessibility improvements implemented and their impact on participation or retention of women with disabilities.
4. Intersectional focus on women with disabilities
   • Explain how programmes or strategies specifically address the unique challenges faced by women with disabilities, considering the intersection of gender and disability.
   • Examples may include targeted outreach to women with disabilities, gender-sensitive training, or initiatives to combat stigma and discrimination in the workplace.
   • Share measurable outcomes, such as increased participation of women with disabilities, changes in employee attitudes (e.g., via surveys), or community impact.
5. Guidance for strong entries
   • Be evidence-based: Use quantifiable metrics (e.g., number of women employed, training outcomes, accessibility upgrades) and concrete examples to demonstrate impact. Avoid vague or anecdotal claims.
   • Emphasise intersectionality: Highlight how initiatives address the combined challenges of gender and disability, ensuring women with disabilities are explicitly prioritised.
   • Show sustainability: Demonstrate how programmes or strategies are designed for long-term impact, with mechanisms for ongoing evaluation and improvement.