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Context: Committee Evidence - SDIR-40 (SDIR) - Nov/28/23

Ms. Tiyahna Ridley-Padmore (Policy Advisor, World Vision Canada)

12:04:45 p.m.
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Thank you for the question. I think it's very relevant. We know that Canada has been a leader in funding education and inclusive, gender-equal education. Also, globally, we're seeing rising crises. We're seeing rising conflict, rising needs, and restrictions and limitations to what funding is possible right now. I think World Vision isn't alone when it says that accessing funding has been challenging. Of course, earlier this year we saw the former minister of international development invest through education and emergencies at the ECW high-level financing conference, which was very welcome. Our needs are continuing to grow. One thing we do hope to see is Canada continuing its leadership in investing in inclusive education and recognizing that we need financial investment that is flexible, adaptive and responsive to the needs of the most vulnerable. It must also take into consideration that humanitarian development nexus and be able to respond to the different challenges that we're seeing in the world. When we talk about disability inclusion, I think that piece on responding to the specific challenges is really key, as well as being able to provide flexible funding that allows us not just to sustain, but to actually reach the most vulnerable.

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Context: Committee Evidence - SDIR-40 (SDIR) - Nov/28/23

Ms. Tiyahna Ridley-Padmore

12:17:13 p.m.
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Thank you for that question. I'm going to try to answer it with one key example. World Vision Canada is the host of the refugee education council, which brings together 15 refugee and displaced youth from different parts of the world and with different lived experiences and backgrounds across intersections. We have youth who identify as LGBTQI+. We have youth who have disabilities. This is a group of young advocates with lived experience who are coming together to help support Canada's international development sector by informing our programming and helping ensure that the work we're doing at a programmatic and advocacy level is informed by lived experience, as well as supporting the Government of Canada. The refugee education council works very closely with the minister and with Global Affairs Canada. Many of you around this table have had an opportunity to interact with them. It's a very strong example and a prototype of what this work can look like and what it can look like to actually bring folks with lived experience in the room to help ensure that nothing is done for them without them. I think that, especially when we're talking about the most marginalized, we need to create space for different types of knowledge, and different types of data as well. Knowledge informed by lived experience in this scenario is the most valuable.

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Context: Committee Evidence - SDIR-40 (SDIR) - Nov/28/23

Ms. Tiyahna Ridley-Padmore

12:26:29 p.m.
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Some of that work we are already doing on the ground. In a number of regions where we provide teacher training on disability inclusion and disability education, teachers are equipped with sign language and able to assess and respond to various special needs. Teachers are even able to identify special needs and disabilities that learners may not have received a formal diagnosis on, and then they are able to support and work with parents and the community to ensure those learners are equipped with the right supports. We are doing some of that work already. When we talk about the gaps and some of those shortcomings, that is in some of those more deliberate pieces. It's about ensuring that disability inclusion is not an add-on but is actually foundational and core to how we approach this work. It's the same as how we think about gender. When we talk about reaching the most marginalized, we want to make sure that we are intentionally building that into the core of our work.

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Context: Committee Evidence - SDIR-40 (SDIR) - Nov/28/23

Ms. Tiyahna Ridley-Padmore

12:46:41 p.m.
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Yes, absolutely. Personally speaking, this motion is quite timely. I have a child at home right now who is currently out of school due to disability since we cannot find structures and resources to support her learning needs. What does that look like in the context of there already being so many barriers to accessing education? The Global Refugee Forum, which will take place in a couple of weeks, offers an opportunity for Canada to ensure that disability inclusion is central to how we're doing this work and how we're investing in education and committing to education. Our immediate steps include ensuring that it remains central to and part of the core of those discussions.

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