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A few years ago, my team and I would confidently have said that our research with audiences was inclusive of various ‘marginalised communities’, including women, young people and people with disabilities. We were careful to ensure that our sampling included respondents and participants from these groups and we were proud that our fieldwork methods enabled ‘inclusive’ participation.

In retrospect, I see some of our assumptions and approaches may actually have contributed to exclusion and stigma, for instance through recruitment screening that sought respondents with visible disabilities without considering those whose disabilities are non-visible, and research venues that were not always accessible to all. Such approaches meant that we were failing to reflect the full experiences of people with disability in Nigeria in our media content.

Our reflections were prompted by ±«Óãtv Media Action’s participation in Inclusive Futures, which started in 2019. Training on disability inclusion revealed just how far from the mark we still were! But it also helped us learn and think more deeply about making our research more inclusive - from what language and terminologies to use and the importance of engaging with disabled people’s organisations, to which research methodologies to adopt, and other ways to make reasonable accommodations.

Disability is highly stigmatised in Nigeria and asking people with disabilities to speak about their experiences is very sensitive. Disability inclusion training equipped us to design our formative research differently. We revised the language and terminologies in our recruitment and research tools to make them more inclusive and non-stigmatising. We established relationships with local disabled people’s organisations to advise and support us on recruitment of people with disabilities for our work. We changed our use of focus groups for audience research to an in-depth interview approach for some disability clusters. And we made more accommodations to enable participation from people with disabilities, for instance, the use of interpreters for deaf participants, and use of accessible venues at all times.

With this revised approach, our formative research enabled people with disability to speak openly about sensitive issues, which gave us more valuable insights on their experiences and the negative attitudes, discrimination and stigma they face from people in their communities, such as the perception that people with disabilities cannot work in formal employment.

“I have faced discrimination such as isolation, people not believing that I have a future and always relegating us to the back in all functions. Also people used to discriminate and shout at me and not wanting to sell things to me whenever I visit the market.”
Female with visual impairment, Lagos

“They [employers] believe that people with disability should not be in the office, they should just be like servants, errand boys or errand girls.”
Female with hearing impairment, Lagos

Our additional research and analysis with journalists and media professionals highlighted that, while awareness of different disability types was quite high - and most believed they had quite positive attitudes towards people with disability - in reality they still talked about disability in a negative and potentially stigmatising way, for instance, believing that people with disability should be ‘pitied’ and using terminology such as ‘people with special needs’. These insights informed the design of our training for media professionals, and of our content to address negative attitudes and stigma towards people with disability in Nigeria.

We also trained in how to use the of questions to identify, in a census or survey, people with disabilities, so that we are clearer on the number of people with disability we are reaching with our work and are able to disaggregate our data and impact results by disability.

Reflecting on our journey, I can say we have improved significantly and are using this learning to change how we conduct our research across all our work in Nigeria.

We now use the WGSS questions in all of our survey questionnaires, and we have expanded our training of research agencies to ensure that when we commission them to collect data, their approach is disability-inclusive. Interestingly, in a recent survey, we found that 11% of the sample identified themselves as a person living with disability – significantly higher than we have seen in the past.

We are also applying these lessons to our recent research on COVID-19 in Nigeria, collecting data from people with disabilities to give us helpful insights into how they are experiencing the pandemic, and what information they need so that we can better support them. For instance, some people with disabilities told us that, in addition to feeling their health is most vulnerable to the pandemic, they worry they will be worst hit by its economic impacts. Caregivers who normally help them may be unable or unwilling to do so. And access to information on coronavirus may be limited for people with disabilities because formats are unsuitable: for example radio content that deaf people cannot hear, or visual or print content which blind people are unable to read.

“My biggest concern is people with disabilities are the hardest hit, they are at higher risk of contracting the virus -- that is one. And secondly the economic activities of Nigeria are shutting down due to the impact of coronavirus, due to the lockdown and so many things, it has really affected people with disabilities because they are the poorest of the poor, they cannot afford 3 meals in a day. And they depend on others to perform their daily tasks like eating, bathing, moving from point A to point B. They can be given the virus through their caregivers. And most of the information shared on COVID-19, the newspaper, the audio is inaccessible to persons with disability like the hearing impaired or blind, and when we talk about the health care facilities, they are not accessible for persons with disability”
Female, 20 – 25 years, Person With Disability, Rural Abuja

While we have improved our disability-inclusive approach, we recognise that the work is not yet done. For example we are working with – an Inclusive Futures partner – to help us improve our skills in conducting inclusive research with persons with psychosocial and intellectual disability.

We know that people with disabilities face exclusion and discrimination across a multitude of areas – we are determined that our research will not be one of them.

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Anu Mohamed is Head of Research and Learning, ±«Óãtv Media Action Nigeria

Learn more about our work to tackle disability discrimination here and our research here.