Understanding partnerships in developing disabled entrepreneurs through participatory action research.
OBJECTIVE
The paper reports on a community disability entrepreneurship project in Khayelitsha and Nyanga, Cape Town, South Africa. Disabled people, Disabled People South Africa ( a national organization made up by disabled people's organizations), a non-governmental organisation and occupational therapists from the University of Cape Town collaborated with the focus to achieve economic empowerment of disabled people though the establishment of micro-enterprises.


METHODS
Participatory Action Research strategies, which informed and monitored the effective development of the community disability entrepreneurship project, were carefully integrated with the existing principles of community development.


RESULTS
The participatory action research process provided an opportunity for shared learning and development. This article reports on the challenges and strategies faced by disabled people in the quest to establish themselves as entrepreneurs. The challenges that were identified through analysis from the experiences of participants were starting with nothing, lack of capacity and complexity of establishing working relationships. The strategies used were building group identity and developing capacity together. Indicators of positive outcome that emerged from an inductive content analysis are presented and discussed.
Division of Occupational Therapy; Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa. lvnkerk@uctgsh1.uct.ac.za
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Van Niekerk
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Lorenzo
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Mdlokolo
D003256:Community Participation; D003657:Decision Making; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D016520:Entrepreneurship / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D012657:Self-Help Groups / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013019:South Africa