Padmani Mendis’ work in disability and rehabilitation

On completing her education at Ladies’ College Colombo Padmani proceeded to England in 1958 for professional studies in orthopaedic nursing and physiotherapy that would lead her to a career in the field of Disability and Rehabilitation. Since then until the present, spanning a period of 61 years her work in disability has taken her from the villages of rural Sri Lanka to those high in the Andes Mountains of Venezuela; from the marshy Mekong Delta to the arid deserts of sub-Saharan Africa; from the land of the Vikings to that of the Masai;  from the shores of the Caribbean to the Cedars of Lebanon; and from the biblical cities of the Middle-East to the rich cultures of China and Japan, sharing experiences in over 50 countries.

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 8^th 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