Inspired by our goal of changing the perception and the title of the book of the Founder, “I CAN, I MUST, I WILL, The Spirit of Success” we came up with the I CAN Awards idea to showcase success stories of persons with disabilities and motivate the society and PWD in particular.
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DR. REGINALD MENGI I CAN AWARDS
- Goal: Change of Perception
- Target: PWD Community and the Society in General
- Problem: Stigma against PWD, self denial and self doubt by PWD community, lack of role models of successful PWD, lack of inspirational local stories
- Expected outcome: Change of attitudes, get inspired, see possibilities, dream big, understanding how to overcome challenges from examples of winners, society to acknowledge success and positive role of PWD, promote the I CAN mentality, promote inclusive society, promote job creation and employment opportunities.
- Other Benefits: Community recognition, cash prize, become ambassadors for change, brand recognition for the foundation, generate success stories to be shared with the society, data collection for PWD, creation of an opportunity to participate in something important.
The call for nominations was widely circulated geared towards reaching all corners of Tanzania. We made announcement on Radio, Television and Social Media. Special Interviews were aired on TV and Radio. We made inclusive sign language video for the hearing impaired PWDs. Soft copies and hardcopy calls for nominations were delivered to Associations of PWD and Social Welfare Offices. [...]
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A total of 450 nominations were received, from 24 regions of Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar. In terms of gender participation 69.5% were male and 30.5% were female. Participation per category were education 27.7%; Entrepreneurship 22.8%; Giving to the Community 15.1%; Special Skills 9.4%; Arts and Entertainment 7.7%; Political 8.1%; Leadership 5.9%; Sports 3.3%. [...]
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A panel of eight independent judges representing practitioners and PWD’s sat for over forty hours to select winners. A team from the Institute of Social Welfare created a professional judging tool. Judges were given access to nominee’s self-written stories and watched short documentaries for reality check. Out of 450 participant 45 candidate were selected as winners. Each category had 1st winner and 2nd and 3rd runups position for both Male and Female representatives [...]
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The first ever I CAN Awards event was hosted on the 17th March 2019 to announce winners and present awards The premises was made accessible and friendly to PWDs. Special seating blocks were created to safely accommodate 5000 PWDs.
To make it an inclusive event and to adopt all types of PWDs we focused on many details like