Because disabled people are people like everyone else, they should have the same rights as everyone else.  That would seem obvious.  Yet in many developing countries, 98% of children with disabilities do not attend school and 80% of people with disabilities live on less than $1 a day! Our main concern is to enable people with disabilities to live as full citizens with their families and in their communities, thus facilitating equal opportunities.

In order to achieve our aim, Handicap International's teams work to give  people caught in disabling situations full access to professional, social, educational, civic and cultural activities.

For people with disabilities, employment is an important way of gaining independence and recognition from their families and communities as well as providing them with an income. Handicap International facilitates the professional inclusion of people with disabilities, who are often excluded and have no financial resources, into the local socio-economic fabric by supporting individual and group projects (developing agricultural work in a village, setting-up a bicycle repair workshop etc.) and by facilitating access to bank loans. We also raise awareness amongst local and foreign businesses about employing people with disabilities. 

Handicap International promotes access to adapted education in accordance with disabled children's needs in order to provide them with similar opportunities to those which non-disabled children have. We support specialized structures (schools for mentally disabled children, for example) as well as the creation of integrated classes (classes for disabled children within mainstream schools) and individual inclusion into mainstream education.

Inclusive education and economic inclusion are not enough by themselves to fully integrate people with disabilities into their communities. Access to information, leisure, buildings, and infrastructures are also important. That is why Handicap International trains and informs political decisions makers and professionals (architects, town planners etc.) so that they are fully aware of the importance of physical accessibility and that is also why we support the organization of sports and cultural events that include rather than exclude.