“The Disability Under Siege project, aims to provide the intellectual, financial and logistical resources required to deliver a transformational step change in education provision for children with disabilities in conflict-affected states.”
Professor Dina Kiwan, Principal Investigator
Project Overview
Disability Under Siege is a co-created programme bringing together a community of researchers, educational practitioners, advocacy organisations and disability led groups in the UK and Middle East. It will contribute to research efforts by providing intellectual and logistical resources that local practitioners need to transform education provision for children with disabilities in conflict-affected countries.
Our research partners include Birzeit University (Palestine), Birmingham City University (UK), Islamic University of Gaza (Palestine), and the Centre for Lebanese Studies (Lebanon), which bring complementary expertise in the fields of education under occupation, inclusion, public health and social action, visual culture and participative arts, disability and social justice.
News and Blogs
Research project & art exhibition seeks to remove stigma of young people with disabilities in Jordan
‘The Though Our Eyes’ project, which is part of the wider Disability Under Siege Network programme, saw six disabled young people in Jordan provided with cameras to photograph and document their everyday lived experiences. These photos will now be made available for the public to view, getting a glimpse into lives and experience which are normally hidden and removed from public discourse.
Arab youth must be harnessed in climate change fight - Professor Dina Kiwan
With its hot, dry climate and scarce water resources, the Middle East region is on the front line of the global climate emergency. And for youth in the region, who are inheriting unprecedented climate challenges, there is a critical and urgent need for governments to take immediate and effective action.
Lords Committee requests urgent review of the Life in the UK Test
In response to Professor Dina Kiwan's recommendations for the Citizenship Life in the UK test the Lords Committee have published their findings in an open letter letter to Home Office Minister, Kevin Foster MP, stressing the need for the Government to begin immediately a review of the Life in the UK Test.
Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 2021
We are excited to announce that Ruth Gilligan, co-investigator for the Disability under Siege project, has won the 2021 RSL Ondaatje Prize with The Butchers (Atlantic Books).
Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Palestinians with Disabilities
Nazmi Al-Masri, co-Investigator for the Disability Under Siege project, recently held two focus group workshops at the Islamic University in Gaza to discuss the impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Palestinians with Disabilities.
Disability Under Siege: An Analytical Framework for a Disability-Inclusive COVID-19 Recovery
Research Fellow, Vera Kubenz, gives a short presentation as part of the #WPRN21 conference on the Disability Under Siege projects, which researches the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on disabled people in Low- and Middle- Income Countries, and aims to design an analytical framework for a disability-inclusive recovery.
Innovative methods for researching disability and COVID-19 in the Global South
This workshop, aimed at academics and practitioners alike, will enable participants to learn about innovative and equitable ways of engaging with disability research in a development context.
For further details of and to register for this online workshop please access the link below.
All Means All!
How to support inclusive education and learning during these times of crisis.
A short video created by the Disability Hub on barriers all students, including students with disabilities in Lebanon, face as they return to in person learning.
Education for disabled children in the Global South during COVID-19: An afterthought?
To mark International Day of Education, Vera Kubenz wrote a blog looking at The impact of the pandemic on disabled children in the Global South.
Deep education reforms needed to get youth more engaged in climate action
Education reforms are needed globally if societies are to harness the full energy and creativity that young people can bring to the climate challenge. That is according to a panel of leading education and environment experts speaking at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW).
Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) annual report, 2022
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) is a non time limited, advisory non departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the Home Office. Established in 2007, the Committee is currently made up of 5 members, including a Chair . To suppor t transparency, the MAC is required to produce an annual declaration of financial and these form an integral part of this governance report. A summary list of the stakeholder engagements that Members of the Committee, along with the Secretariat, accounts, have attended in the year is also provided. We are also including in this year’s governance report a record of all commissioned work and research papers published by the MAC in 2022.
University of Birmingham-led project commissions exciting disability research in the Middle East
The network recently funded two large research projects and five small knowledge exchange projects in Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan. The projects, funded through open calls, will receive a total of £400,000. They will focus on inclusive education, access to arts and culture for people with disabilities, and challenging wider perceptions of disability. All projects are led by organisations in the Middle East.
“Vulnerable” or Systematically Excluded? The Impact of Covid-19 on Disabled People in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected disabled people across the globe. This review article maps the impact of the pandemic on disabled people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICS) during the first ten months of the pandemic, based on a semi-systematic review of 113 articles of empirical and “grey” literature.
The impact of COVID-19 on Persons with Disabilities in Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan
In 2021 researchers from the Disability Under Siege Network in Lebanon, Jordan, and the occupied Palestinian territories investigated the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on persons with disabilities living in those countries.
Appointment to the Migration Advisory Committee
We are delighted to share with you that Professor Dina Kiwan, Principal Investigator for the Disability Under Siege project, has been appointed as a member of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) for 3 years from 1 May 2021.
Mapping Inclusivity of Needs Assessment & Reconstruction Initiatives During Beirut Blast Recovery Response
On August 4, 2020, a blast in Beirut’s port area caused immense damage to the city, killing approximately 200 people, and leaving 6,500 injured and over 300,000 displaced. The study,
written by Itab Shuayb and Sabine Doueiry, is now available to download from The Disability Hub.
Global Perspectives on Sign Language Interpreting
The Disability Hub at the Centre for Lebanese Studies (LAU) with our Partners at the Disability Under Siege Project are pleased to invite you to their online
event "Global Perspectives on Sign Language Interpreting", The role, education,and professionalization of Arabic and International Sign interpreters in Lebanon and Jordan on Monday 8 November 2021, 4:00 – 5:30 PM Beirut-Amman / 2:00 PM UK.
A letter to friends and colleagues; "What needs to be known, remembered, and acted upon."
Rita Giacaman, co-investigator for the Disability under Siege project, writes from Ramallah, West Bank, occupied Palestinian territory, about the latest brutal Israeli attack on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
How pandemic responses neglected disabled people’s rights
Research Fellow for the Disability under Siege project, Vera Kubenz, writes for The Conversation on "How pandemic responses neglected disabled people's rights."
Citizenship Life in the UK test
On Tuesday 29th March Professor Dina Kiwan, was invited as an expert witness to the Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee to discuss the Citizenship Life in the UK test. You can watch the proceedings on the parliament TV channel, link below.
Dis/abled decolonial human and citizen futures
Our PI, Professor Dina Kiwan has recenlty published an article IN the journal, Citizenship Studies.
The article utilises the dual methodological lens of disability and
decolonisation in order to critically examine, in interdisicplinary and
global perspective, what it will mean to be both a ‘human’ and
a ‘citizen’ in the 21st century.
Disability Under Siege: decolonising knowledge on disability in contexts of conflict and crisis by Professor Dina Kiwan
Tuesday 19th May 2022 18:00-19:00 UK Time:
Did you know that 15% of the world’s population – 1 billion people – experience some form of disability? The prevalence of disability is even higher in lower- and middle-income countries, exacerbated by poverty and conflict (World Bank, 2018).
Not only is disability higher in these countries, and its effects exacerbated by the socio-political conditions, infrastructure and attitudes to disability, but disability also arises as a direct result of conflict and armed violence.
Most research and knowledge of disability in lower- and middle-income countries has been produced in the Global North, despite the majority of disabled people being in the Global South. In this lecture, Professor Kiwan will examine dominant discourses of disability, outline key areas of research in the field, and propose priority research areas for the future.
Disabled people are being left out of COVID recovery. Here are five ways to change that
After two years of the pandemic, there is an understandable desire to “go back to normal”. Disabled people, having been particularly impacted by the pandemic, have described the removal of all COVID rules as a “kick in the teeth”.
Read Vera Kubenz's recent article in The Conversation
Network and Knowledge Exchange Funding Call - now open!
Up to £30,000 will be available to create opportunities for learning and co-production of new knowledge and sustainable practices for education for those with disabilities, with a focus on Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. To find out more visit our Research Opportunities page.
All In
The global recovery from Covid-19 must be disability-inclusive. It is time for the left to work with disabled people, putting us at the heart of their plans, writes Vera Kubenz, research fellow, Disability under Siege project.
What can the COVID-19 pandemic teach us about disability justice?
The event will explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on disabled people, who have been deprioritised in pandemic planning around the world, facing discrimination in healthcare, exclusion from education and employment, and neglect, abuse, and violence both in care and in the community. The event will explore how the lived experience of disabled people can inform activism and politics to make the world a fairer and more accessible place for all.
The impact of COVID-19 on Persons with Disabilities in Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan.
All Means All! How to support inclusive education and learning during these times of crisis.
Life Cycle and the Story of Inclusive Design
Disability under Siege Newsletter December 2022
The latest edition of the Disability under Siege newsletter is now available. Follow the link below to catch up on news and events from our network partners.
Disability under Siege Newsletter August 2022
The latest edition of the Disability under Siege newsletter is now available. Follow the link below to catch up on news and events from our network partners.
Disability under Siege Newsletter December 2021
The latest edition of the Disability under Siege newsletter is now available. Follow the link below to catch up on news and events from our network partners.
Disability under Siege Newsletter May 2021
