Year one of Ghana Somubi Dwumadie’s Evidence and Effectiveness Grants
A group photo of the grantees and staff of Ghana Somubi Dwumadie after a capacity building training in Accra in April 2021.
Incredible!
Between May and June 2022, the first year of Ghana Somubi Dwumadie’s Evidence and Effectiveness Grants ended for five organisations delivering our small grants programme on mental health and disability. While four organisations continue to deliver the large grants programme, we wish to celebrate the successes of our small grantees.
A grants mechanism to support Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) has been one of the programme’s key implementation strategies. The programme’s second grants call (Evidence and Effectiveness) was commissioned with the goal to ensure that people with disabilities, including people with mental health conditions, are in the lead on approaches to improve their well-being, social and economic outcomes, and rights. Towards this end, grantees trained and built the capacity of persons with disability, including persons with mental health conditions, as disability inclusion champions and advocates who promoted the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities, and engaged duty bearers on their needs through interface meetings. This led to an improvement in the quality of support that persons with disability receive from duty bearers.
Small grants were awarded to five organisations working on advocacy and social behaviour change in more than 30 districts in Volta, Oti, Northern, North-East, Central and Upper West Regions of Ghana.
To reduce stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities, including people with mental health conditions, grantees developed positive disability language in local dialects and extensively promoted its use in project communities. This resulted in an improvement in the use of positive language in describing persons with disabilities, including persons with mental health conditions. In addition, grantees engaged and sensitised traditional authorities and chiefs to become disability inclusion ambassadors, leading inclusion efforts in their respective jurisdictions. Some traditional authorities established byelaws to restrict the use of negative language and discriminatory practices against persons with disabilities, thereby leading to a reduction in stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities, including people with mental health conditions.
As part of ending the small grants, technical and financial monitoring took place in May and June 2022 and we spent three days in each of their offices, gathering narrative and financial report feedback. Grantees were supported to tidy-up their internal evaluation plans and encouraged to finalise and hit the ground for data collection to write and submit their grant evaluation reports. Back in the office, the grants team was busy uploading final grantee reports, counting, and adding service user numbers and tallying financial expenditure to ensure each grantee book was ready for effective closure and to ensure the accurate report is sent to UK Aid, whose funding allows this work to be possible.
Evidently, grant closure often comes with the satisfaction and honour of successfully supporting a grant partner to realise their vision through a funded programme and meet the expectation of service users. The process of transformation has already started to bear fruits. Grantee reports testified to the improved well-being of people with disabilities and their families, improved disability language use as well as an improved culture of support for disability inclusion. Some key outcomes of the grants included:
· 20,617 people made up of 9,422 men and 11,112 women were directly reached between May 2021 and June 2022
· 45% of project participants were able to successfully apply for the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) as compared to 28% at the start
· 35% of project participants have witnessed a major improvement in accessing help or support services from stakeholders such as close family members, friends, co-workers, neighbours, traditional authorities and District Assembly
· 45% of project participants reported a major improvement in accessing social services such as DACF, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), assistive devices and healthcare
· 74% of participants experienced an improvement in the use of positive disability language in describing them
· 44% of participants experienced an improvement in their involvement in decision-making at the family and community level
The road is open for sustained evidence-based advocacy and social behaviour change in the areas where these grants were implemented, now and beyond.
Read our learning product about what works in grant making in disability and mental health here: Download pdf
Read our evaluation of the small grants here: Download pdf