Padmani
Mendis’ work in disability and rehabilitation
Her
most significant contribution in her chosen area of work has been as a
consultant to the World Health Organization. She was fortunate to have been
invited by the WHO in 1979 to participate in pioneering a strategy that would
enable WHO to put on the ground their new disability policy directed at
reaching people who have disabilities yet unreached with opportunities to
overcome the effects of their situations. The strategy that Padmani helped
pioneer together with two co-consultants, Einar Helander and Gunnel Nelson,
came to be called Community-Based Rehabilitation or CBR now increasingly called
Disability-Inclusive Development. CBR is currently implemented in over
100 countries throughout the world. It addresses the needs
of people with disabilities and their family members and aims to provide
rehabilitation, reduce poverty, equalize opportunities and promote their
socio-economic inclusion in the development mainstream. To implement this new
strategy Padmani together with her co-consultants authored and developed a tool
in the form of a Manual. Called “Training in the Community for People with
Disabilities”. The Manual has now been translated and used in over 60
languages. Padmani’s role in her first 10 years was to evaluate globally both
the strategy and the Manual which was finally published by WHO in 1989. For
purposes of this field evaluation Padmani had tasks introducing the strategy
and teaching various categories and levels of personnel to implement it. At the
same time tasks involved developing a monitoring and evaluation system so that
CBR would evolve continuously to meet the changing needs of people living in
varying social, economic and cultural environments.
Padmani’s
work at this time continued to help expand the CBR strategy as a comprehensive
approach to provide people with disabilities with opportunities including
knowledge and skills for personal development, communication, health care,
education, income generation, family and social inclusion and participation in
the development of their communities and their countries. Interventions start
in the homes and communities in which people with disabilities live. Programmes
then continue to develop support and referral systems which will include them
at all levels of a country’s administration and development.
Over
the years in addition to taking on a broader role as a Consultant for WHO
Headquarters and Regional Offices, Padmani was also requested to undertake work
in disability by several International NGOs (Save the Children Sweden and U.K.,
Christofel-Blinden Mission (CBM), Norwegian Association for the Disabled(NAD)
and other UN Agencies (UNDP, ILO, UNICEF). Recognizing the leadership
that Padmani was providing to the development of rehabilitation and CBR she was
appointed to the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Disability Prevention and
Rehabilitation from 1980 until she reached the customary age of retirement from
that panel – a period of 25 years.
At
home in Sri Lanka in her role promoting the development of CBR to benefit
people with disabilities, she facilitated the setting up of the Disability
Studies Unit (now Department of Disability Studies) at the University of
Kelaniya, the first of its kind in a developing country. Also a first in
a developing country is the Centre for Excellence in Disability Research, Education
and Practice established at the University of Colombo. During these 6 decades
and more Padmani’s’ work in disability and rehabilitation in Sri Lanka has
involved also the following at various times; Member, National Council for
Persons with Disabilities; Adviser, Disability Organizations Joint Front;
Senior Consultant on Inclusive Education, Faculty of Education, The Open
University of Sri Lanka; Member, Advisory Committee on Special Education,
Ministry of Education; Consultant, Ministry of Social Services; National
Disability Adviser, Social Care Centres Project implemented by Queen’s
University, Canada; Adviser on CBR, Japan Overseas Volunteer Corps, JICA Sri
Lanka; Founder-member Sri Lanka Evaluation Association; and tasks for WHO, ILO,
UNICEF and The World Bank besides many local and international NGOs.
Padmani
chaired the Committee that prepared Sri Lanka’s National Policy on Disability
which was approved by Cabinet in 2003, and chaired also the subsequent
Committee that drafted a Disability Rights Bill to give effect to the Policy.
As a consultant to WHO she assisted in the preparation of the rights-based
multi-dimensional, multi-ministerial, Multilevel National Plan of Action for Disability
approved by Cabinet in 2014. As a consultant to The World Bank she assisted the
Ministry of Health prepare “National Guidelines for Rehabilitation Services in
Sri Lanka”. She also works with people with disabilities and others to have the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
implemented in Sri Lanka to fulfil the vision of a disability-inclusive
Society. In recognition
of her work in Sri Lanka and globally, during the Centenary year she was one of
6 distinguished former pupils invited by her old school Ladies College to
participate in the Centenary Seminar Lecture Series with a Public Lecture on
“Isolation to Inclusion; Changing Perceptions of Disability”.
Padmani is now in the 8th
decade of her life. Strenuous physical endurance required for field work,
teaching and travel has called for a change in her professional life. She now
contributes to her chosen field of work by writing, using the learning and
experience she has been fortunate to gain. She is currently preparing two
handbooks for publication that will help put into practice “Disability
Inclusive Development’ in her country. This will enable the implementation of
the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and Sri Lanka's National Policy on Disability, and achieve
its goal of a better quality of life for people with disabilities with equality
in all things. The first publication is called "Policy Brief for Lawmakers, Administrators and other Decision Makers " co-authored with Binendri Perera an Attorney-at-Law and Researcher. The second is “Disability Inclusive
Development – knowledge pack for Sri Lanka”. These will be released to
the public before the end of this year.
In
recognition of the contribution she has made in the field of disability and
rehabilitation Padmani has received four prestigious international awards. In
1990 Uppsala University, Sweden, awarded her “Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) Honoris
Causa” in recognition of her pioneering role and contribution to the global
development of Community-based Rehabilitation. In April 2015 she was awarded
the “Leadership in Rehabilitation 2015” award by the World Confederation of
Physical Therapy. This Award is made every 4 years to recognize an individual
or group/or organization that has made an exceptional contribution to
international rehabilitation and/or global health.
Very
recently Padmani received two more prestigious honours. Lincoln College
University Malaysia awarded her an honorary Professorship and an honorary Ph.D. in Physiotherapy in May of this year.
01 November 2019
