Abstract
This article reports on a qualitative analysis of 28 interviews with activists from a disability rights organization in Lebanon about their experiences organizing during war-time. Findings reveal challenges as well as opportunities for advancing a disability rights agenda within the context of war. Implications for social work are discussed.
Introduction
Amidst the talk of trauma, psychosocial rehabilitation and assisting people to cope with newly acquired impairments, it is perhaps easy to lose sight of the fact that people with disabilities are not only recipients of care, but also activists during times of war. Authors such as Carey (2003) and Meekosha and Dowse (2007) note that social work practice has contributed to a view of people with disabilities that has focused on medical discourses of impairments, treatment and cure. The potential and actual contributions of people with disabilities as activists are rendered invisible. As social workers we could benefit from bringing these contributions to light as a way of challenging medical discourses about people with disabilities.
Moreover, while the destructive and detrimental nature of war may be self-evident, war can also provide opportunities for social change. Relying on a case study conducted in Lebanon within a grassroots organization, this article discusses the challenges presented by war to disability rights activists in their work; the discussion also highlights the opportunities that situations of conflict present for advancing a disability rights agenda. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for social work.
Situating the study within the scholarship
There is currently a dearth of available information on the experiences of people with disabilities in Southern contexts: ‘it is remarkable how little we know about the lives and the worlds occupied by people with disabilities in developing countries’ considering that they are the majority of the disabled population worldwide (Fujiura et al., 2005: 295). Scholars have noted the scarcity of available studies and have called for a focus on the social impacts of war on people with disabilities as opposed to only looking at the physical aspects of becoming disabled (Harris, 2003; Miles and Medi, 1994).
Several authors have called for the adoption of a social model of disability instead of a medical model; this is important in that it supports an understanding of people with disabilities as more than a sum of their health or abilities (Race et al., 2005). The social model locates the barriers that people with disabilities face not in their impairments or in their individual conditions but in a ‘disabling society’ permeated by oppressive power relations (Race et al., 2005; Sin and Yan, 2003; Watson et al., 2004).
Moreover, within a social model, there is an emphasis on how the social, cultural and political contexts shape the experiences of people with disabilities (Dossa, 2006). However, the social model has been critiqued for not considering the broader context of how North–South power relations shape ‘disabling’ societies (Stubbs, 1999). There is also an over-emphasis in the scholarship on the experiences of people with disabilities in the North and the assumed generalizability of these experiences to Southern contexts (Holden and Beresford, 2002), where war is often a reality. Despite the fact that living in contexts of war figures prominently in the experiences of many people with disabilities in the South, there is a dearth of research on the topic. Available scholarship has tended to focus on the impact of war on people with disabilities, as opposed to the contributions of people with disabilities within contexts of war, as demonstrated by the brief review below.
In Somaliland, people with disabilities who have experienced war and lived within a context of conflict are prevented from participation in schooling and employment and face other barriers to their social inclusion (Tomlinson and Abdi, 2003). Similarly, in their study with Albanians following the war in Kosovo, Cardozo et al. (2000) highlight the important impacts of war on social functioning, especially for those injured during the war. Another study by Harris (2003) reaffirms the barriers to inclusion facing people who have developed impairments as a result of war and torture. In her study of refugees and asylum seekers in Britain, the author notes the impacts of war on education, employment and social functioning in their countries of origin and in the country of asylum. In a study of the impacts of war on children in Mozambique, Miles and Medi (1994) highlight problems of social functioning as a result of war and argue for the importance of social integration efforts rather than a focus on medical interventions.
A common theme that emerges from these studies is a concern that the concentration of intervention with people with disabilities has predominantly been on the medical and not social aspects of being disabled. Beyond a focus on the individual aspects of a person’s experience, the studies also note the need to take into account the broader context as it has a bearing on the lived experiences of people with disabilities. However, while noting this gap and calling for a focus on social as opposed to medical discourses, extant studies continue to discuss people with disabilities as recipients of services. Instead, we need to shift the focus of social work research to an examination of the contributions of people with disabilities as activists within contexts of war. While recognizing the impacts of war on people with disabilities is crucial as a guide for service development and delivery, highlighting their role as disability rights activists allows us as social workers to move away from medical discourses and to explore how we could potentially work with them as allies.
Context and methodology
There are many social services targeting people with disabilities in Lebanon; examples of such organizations include government social service agencies, care institutions for the disabled, non-governmental community organizations, and social services affiliated with and funded by political parties. These organizations have predominantly adopted medical models that have emphasized institutionalization or charity approaches. As a strategy of resistance and to provide an alternative to medical discourses, disability rights groups emerged in the early 1980s founded by and for people with disabilities (Coleridge, 1993). These organizations have worked on providing alternative models of services that have promoted inclusion, for example by pioneering inclusive education or employment models.
Disability rights organizations have also worked on the development and implementation of legislation supporting the rights of people with disabilities. Notably in Lebanon, disability rights organizations such as the Lebanese Physically Handicapped Union, Youth Association for the Blind and the Lebanese Down Syndrome Association have been at the forefront of lobbying for the development and implementation of Law 220, which came into effect in 2000. This law establishes the rights of people with disabilities in areas such as education, housing and employment, as well as other areas of everyday life. Disability rights organizations also played a pivotal role in lobbying the government for the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which was signed by Lebanon in June 2007, less than two months after it was open for signatures by the United Nations (United Nations Enable, n.d.).
Within Lebanon, disability rights activists work in a context that has been shaped by the specter of war, past and looming. These conflicts, including the civil war (1975−1990) and various Israeli aggressions, have been fed by sectarian divisions shaped by colonial and neocolonial interventions in the region (Faour, 2007). Of particular relevance to the current study is the July 2006 War with Israel which spanned 33 days of devastation to the infrastructure of the country and led to the death, impairment, and displacement of thousands to regions within and outside of Lebanon (Nyers, 2010; Shinar, 2009).
Disability rights activists played a crucial role within all of the aforementioned conflicts, providing support and services to people with disabilities in displacement centers. This was especially necessary since most organizations on the ground tend to be unaware of, or have no expertise in dealing with, their needs (Rammal, 2008). These activists have also dealt with the aftermath of war by advocating for the rebuilding of inclusive infrastructures (e.g. rebuilding destroyed schools to be physically accessible) as well as by providing follow-up services to people with disabilities affected by the war. In addition to these efforts, disability rights activists have engaged in a sustained and lengthy history of anti-war activism (Rammal, 2008).
The research discussed in this article sought to understand the experiences of disability rights activists through a qualitative case study of individual interviews with 28 activists from a grassroots organization active since 1981 in Lebanon. The organization, described in the scholarship as a pioneering disability rights organization (Coleridge, 1993), was selected for the case study in the light of its long history of activism which has included advocacy against war and sectarianism, as well as emergency relief efforts in various regions within Lebanon during war-time. The organization also has broad geographical reach, which has allowed it to be involved in urban and rural settings and with various religious sects. As an academic of Lebanese origin, I have been actively involved with this organization for the past 10 years as an activist social worker on a variety of research, advocacy and community development projects.
Participants in the study were all involved during war-time, some since the days of the Lebanese civil war. Others were also involved in emergencies and crises arising from Israeli aggression including the July 2006 War. Participants tended to focus on their experiences during the latter as it was the most recent at the time of conducting the interviews. Interviews were semi-structured and participants were asked to discuss their experiences during the war through their work with the disability rights organization.
The sample included 14 men and 14 women activists who were working in rural and urban regions most affected by the ravages of war. They were selected based on an extensive organizational consultation process that identified activists who were involved during war. This process began with establishing a preliminary list with the assistance of two long-time activists who had been involved in emergency relief efforts since the inception of the organization. A second list of names was established through reading organizational archival documents such as reports, newsletters and minutes of meetings. The two lists were then compared and a shortlist was established based on recurring names, various roles played by the activists in emergency relief efforts, a gender balance and geographical spread. The list was then confirmed with the Executive Director of the organization who had also been involved in emergency relief efforts since the early days of the organization.
The ages of the participants ranged from the early 20s to late 50s with the majority being in their early 40s. Almost all the participants were disabled (20); eight participants identified as volunteers who are not currently disabled. It is important to note that only people with disabilities are entitled to membership in the organization and others who wish to join can do so as volunteers or staff. The sample included members, staff, board members and volunteers involved in the organization for a range of 4 to 29 years, with half of the participants being involved for over 15 years.
Findings: Challenges and opportunities
Interviews were analyzed relying on thematic analysis, and findings resulted in a picture of a passionate and committed group of activists who have sustained their activism in the face of challenges either created by or exacerbated by a context of war. Findings also indicated the potential for advancing a disability rights agenda within the context of war. These challenges and opportunities are the subject of this article. It is noteworthy that data analysis also generated findings related to the experiences of women activists in the context of war, and these findings are presented more amply in a recent publication adopting a feminist analysis to explore the particular issues facing them (Wehbi, 2010). Moreover, participants spoke at length of the impact of foreign funding on their work and as such this challenge is the subject of a future publication exploring the impacts of neocolonial interventions on a disability rights agenda (Wehbi, 2011).
Challenges
Activists discussed how the context of war leads to a shift in the focus of their work; they also discussed the lack of coordination of efforts on the ground, foreign donor interventions and the personal challenges that they faced.
Shifting focus
A challenge mentioned by almost all of the participants was the need to shift focus from long-term advocacy work to short-term service delivery, including emergency relief and work during the post-war reconstruction period. Houssein, a member of the organization since 1987, describes this shift:
In terms of the implementation of Law 220, we wouldn’t have been delayed if we didn’t have to deal with other issues. Every time we thought that now we are going to reach our rights, we wouldn’t because we can’t work on rights when a person injured in the war needs a colostomy bag. We have to provide this service so he could leave his home.
However, as several activists noted, this shift in focus was necessary as part of the organization’s civic and national responsibility. This shift strengthened belief in the organization and its role as Nour, a staff member since 2000, notes in her discussion of the July War:
I thank God that I was working at an organization that was able to change its goals during that time and that did not just sit aside doing nothing. They could have said that we work on disability issues so we don’t need to get involved … But their involvement made me believe more in [the organization] because I saw that when the situation required it, the organization was able to adjust its goals.
In addition to a delay in the implementation of rights legislation and a need to shift focus to service-oriented work, advocacy was also halted as a precaution in order to preserve the organization’s neutrality and to avoid being seen as siding with one party over another. Lina, a member of the organization since 1986 who has also held key administrative positions, notes in reference to the aftermath of the July War:
In 2006 we really had to reduce our advocacy presence so that we wouldn’t be classified as belonging to this group or against that group. If you protest against the government, then you are against ‘March 14th’ [the party coalition currently in power], and if you go to a rally with the labour unions, then you are with the opposition. So, we retreated from the streets.
For a grassroots organization that has historically been quite vocal and visible in terms of its advocacy work, the need to shift to a focus on service delivery was a setback that delayed the long-term goals of achieving rights for people with disabilities, even if this involvement was seen as part of the organization’s civic responsibility. Indeed, for the activists, disability rights and issues are seen as part and parcel of a national agenda. As discussed later, involvement in the emergency and relief efforts provided the organization with the opportunity to put forward disability issues.
Moreover, in the post-war period, there is a challenge of ensuring that beneficiaries are aware that service delivery is not the nature of the organization’s work. Maha, a staff member since a few months before the start of the July War, describes the need to deal with this issue:
I used to feel that the biggest challenge was working with people who are newly injured and their families. We were offering services but at the same time trying to pass the message that as an organization we don’t usually offer services but right now this is what we’re doing.
The situation is exacerbated in rural areas where the organization is sometimes the only presence in terms of disability issues. Saleem, a member, and Abeer, a social worker, who work with the organization in one of its rural branches, describe how their emergency relief efforts did not end with the July War; instead, they continued to receive requests for services from people with disabilities and their families in the village where they work. When they reiterated the message that the organization does not usually offer relief services, they were confronted with doubts and disbelief from the villagers. As Saleem notes, this had an impact on villagers’ trust in the organization: ‘they thought we were hiding relief materials and that we simply didn’t want to distribute them’. This situation was especially problematic when foreign funders had promised donations that were later rescinded when the war ended.
Lack of coordination and foreign funding
Some activists discussed a lack of coordination of relief efforts and attributed this to sectarianism, to the absence of the Lebanese state, and to exclusion from the coordination meetings of international agencies.
Without exception, all of the participants noted the absence of the Lebanese state in the emergency efforts during the July War and in previous conflicts. Some participants attributed this to a lack of financial and material resources, while others cited Lebanon’s history of multi-sectarian party rule and divisions that have weakened the role of a national state entity. These historical and contemporary divisions were felt on the ground during relief efforts, as Maha notes:
My dream is that there would be networking at the minimum at the level of services not politics. There are many needs but the state is absent completely, but services have to reach people. We have the material resources, so why don’t we unify our efforts to cover these needs? The political issues, you could find a solution for later . . . . In some places there was duplication and in some places we weren’t able to provide services because of the absence of the state.
The absence of the state combined with already existent sectarian political divisions contributed to a situation whereby services were reaching only those who were affiliated with specific sects or were residing in areas supported by particular sectarian political parties. As Ali, a long-time member and previous Board of Directors President notes:
One would expect that during war, efforts should turn to relief work for all people in general, not according to sectarian belonging. But unfortunately, there were organizations that were known to be sectarian and to belong to a particular political party. They had foreign funding and could work on their own.
Ali alludes to the presence of foreign funding and its impact on organizations active on the ground. In terms of networking, for those receiving this type of funding, there was less of an incentive to collaborate or network with others, leading to a lack of coordination of services. The participants also noted the exclusion of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from attending the meetings of international agencies such as the United Nations. This situation meant that foreign agendas and intervention models were often privileged over local responses.
Moreover, foreign funding came with strings attached that presented other challenges for activists; as noted above, these challenges are the subject of another publication as the wealth of data on this theme merited in-depth discussion (Wehbi, 2011). Briefly, while activists were grateful for foreign funding, especially in light of the absence of the state’s provision of services and resources, most were also concerned about funder interventions. Activists noted the conditions and constraints placed by some, if not all, foreign funders, including: restrictions in terms of which areas could receive funded services and resources; imposing personnel and hiring criteria; assuming the transferability of intervention approaches from contexts outside of Lebanon; and the aforementioned lack of follow-through on promised funding.
Personal challenges
Activists discussed the situations of danger and risk that they faced, for example, when delivering supplies to displacement centers or doing outreach. As importantly, activists discussed the emotional toll that working and living through war has taken on them. Nour provides an example that highlights the impact of foreign interventions on the political situation:
I will never forget when we were preparing for an anti-war demonstration and people from the NGOs started fighting about what slogan to use. Some wanted to put something about Iran, others wanted something about the United States. And then they started fighting. I went back home and started crying. What were they fighting for? People are dying. Before they started talking in the news about political divisions, I lived them inside these organizations.
Many participants also expressed the feeling that the horrors and neglect they witnessed in terms of the treatment of people with disabilities reinforced the traumatic impacts of war but also made them appreciate the importance of their work. Souraya, a member of the organization since 1989 recounts the story and emotional impact of evacuating two siblings with intellectual disabilities who had been left behind by their families in the rubble of a destroyed building; they had been there for several days without food or water in a heavily guarded militia-controlled area with restricted access. The organization was contacted to evacuate the siblings due to its reputation in dealing with disability issues and for political and sectarian neutrality. Souraya describes seeing the siblings for the first time:
As tough and as strong as I am, when I saw this picture in front of me, I couldn’t help but cry… You see them and your heart starts breaking. No one had known how to communicate with them. This scene really affected me.
At the time of conducting the interviews, the story of the two siblings and other stories of neglect like it had become part of the lore of emergency relief work. Activists recounted these stories with strong emotional expression but always continued by discussing the importance of the work conducted by the disability rights organization and why it was needed, particularly given the fact that other organizations on the ground did not know how to work with or did not pay attention to people with disabilities.
For the women activists, additional difficulties and challenges presented themselves in the course of their work during the war. As previously noted, these experiences are discussed in depth in a separate publication (Wehbi, 2010). Briefly, for some women, an additional challenge lay in restrictions on their participation because of normative societal expectations about the roles of women. Other women expressed the challenge of balancing responsibilities in the home with their involvement in activism. All women activists discussed the personal strength and determination required to surpass these challenges. The women also noted the importance of family support and the positive reputation of the disability rights organization as important supports allowing them to continue their activism.
Opportunities
While being careful to emphasize the nefarious impacts of the war, participants also discussed how this context allowed them to raise awareness about disability issues, to increase outreach efforts, in addition to providing them with personal opportunities.
Raising awareness
Through their work in displacement centers, lobbying the government for access to resources and in meetings with other NGOs engaged in relief efforts, the organization’s engagement during the war and in the post-war reconstruction period provided opportunities to raise awareness about disability issues and the needs of people with disabilities. Rana, a social worker and volunteer with the organization since 1995 explains how awareness was raised in displacement centers during the July War:
The experience that stood out for me was people being in solidarity with people with disabilities; even though they had been far from the environment of disability as a whole, they began to be more aware about it and how to deal with people with disabilities . . . . For example, children with disabilities and able-bodied children played together and inclusion was happening through their common games.
Rana refers to the psychosocial games developed by social workers to help children deal with the trauma and emotional stresses of war and displacement. She notes that inclusion, which is a goal of disability rights organizations in Lebanon, where institutionalization and exclusionary education policies are still the norm, appeared to be occurring on the ground through the opportunities they were providing for children.
Diana, a volunteer with the organization since 1986, points to broader levels of awareness-raising that occurred as a result of the organization being active during the war:
We would spend one or two years working on emergency relief. After this period, there is a marked increase in media attention about the damages sustained by people with disabilities and the increase in the numbers of people with disabilities. There are activities such as press conferences that happen to shed light on the magnitude of the disaster and the needs of people with disabilities.
Indeed, as discussed by several participants, the organization has historically used the increase in the numbers of people with disabilities as a result of the war in its anti-war advocacy efforts. As such, the context of war provides the opportunity to link disability to national crises, thereby placing disability issues on the national agenda.
Increased outreach and networking
Through networking with other NGOs, connections with international funders, lobbying local governments for services for people with disabilities, and sustained presence throughout the war, the organization came to be better known and recognized for its professionalism, capacity and resourcefulness. Indeed, some activists expressed the feeling that the organization came to be seen as a resource on disability issues by others working on the ground.
Involvement in emergency relief efforts during the war also provided the organization with the opportunity to expand its work to regions where it had not yet established its presence, and this involvement has been sustained in the post-war period. Maha provides this example in her discussion of the aftermath of the July War:
If it weren’t for the emergency work it would have been difficult for the organization to arrive to some remote locations, for example, Bint Jbeil [in the South] . . . . We were able to raise awareness about the needs of people with disabilities with the municipalities and other organizations because they knew that during the war our organization had worked there. So this made them know us and allowed us to be there. In Baalabek [in the Bekaa region] it was the same thing: we didn’t have a branch there but we did emergency work and offered services and now we have relationships and a center, and we can’t keep up with all the work.
The war also provided the opportunity to reconnect with old members. As Raneem, a volunteer with the organization since 1987, notes, current members and staff of the organization began to seek out former members to find out if they had any support needs during the war; this brought many of the former members back into the folds of the organization.
In addition, there was an opportunity to gain new members through outreach (i.e. home visits) and work in the displacement centers. The commitment of the organization’s members, staff and volunteers also translated into these activists involving family members and friends as volunteers in the work of the organization. Nour speaks of the sense of civic responsibility noted earlier:
Even our friends who have nothing to do with the organization were working with us. I had a friend living in Ashrafie [in Beirut] and we needed volunteers there. I spoke with her and she started doing home visits to people with disabilities to see what they needed . . . . [People became involved] because during war, you feel that you are part of this country and you thank God that you have a role to play. You might thank a volunteer for helping in a certain region, but the volunteer will also thank you for allowing her or him to contribute.
In short, the organizations’ involvement during the war provided it with opportunities to increase its outreach and raise awareness through inclusionary activities within displacement centers, reconnecting with former members, involvement of new volunteers, and media campaigns to put disability issues forward.
Personal opportunities
As noted earlier, involvement during war provided some activists with the opportunity to exercise what they saw as their civic duty. For others, involvement was a way of overcoming their own fears for their safety: as Imane, a member since 1986, notes, being concerned for the well-being of others made her less afraid for herself. Describing her work to take other people with disabilities to safe shelter during the harrowing events of the two Israeli aggressions of 1993 and 1996, she explains:
Imagine, you’re working with people and you see warplanes in the sky and your life is in the balance but you feel that you’re helping people . . . . It’s the first time in my life that I don’t feel fear. My life was not the issue and I was not worried about me. What was important was that the people who were with me arrive to safety.
Hafiz, a volunteer with the organization since 2005, discusses how the July War provided him with the opportunity to be involved in a way that allowed him to ‘clear his conscience’. He describes his 17-year history as a member of an armed militia and how he was ‘ruthless’ and knew nothing of life but the rifle and the frontline. He notes:
All my life I used to participate in war, not work to reduce its impacts. During the July War, I had made the decision to do the opposite. Maybe because I felt guilty [for past involvements in the war], I volunteered with all my power.
Similarly for Souraya, being involved provided her with a way of making a personal contribution:
I become stronger during war because I know that people need me. I can’t walk a lot, run, or sit for too long, but when there is an exceptional circumstance in the country, I begin to have more capacity and energy than I usually have. I volunteered with three organizations during the war on top of my regular job and with all this, I don’t remember feeling the exhaustion. The country needed us. If I wanted to do the same thing now in the current [non-war] situation, I wouldn’t be able to. My body wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Like Souraya, for many women activists, involvement during the war appears to have provided the possibility to push beyond the limits of what is socially acceptable. For many of the participants this involvement provided them with the opportunity to feel more self-confident. For some women, this meant challenging what is normatively seen in a patriarchal society as women’s incapacity or fear of engaging in war-time relief, which is traditionally viewed as the reserve of men.
Discussion and concluding thoughts: Implications for social work
This paper has discussed the findings of a study on the challenges facing disability rights activists in a context of war and the opportunities that are presented in terms of advancing a disability rights agenda. While most of the activists interviewed are not social workers by training, their work during emergency relief efforts and post-war reconstruction periods entailed responsibilities central to social work practice. These included: outreach to communities, conducting home visits to assess needs, networking with other NGOs, providing psychosocial support to individuals and families, as well as engaging in advocacy efforts at the national level. As social workers, we can play a more active role in supporting the work of these activists during times of war.
Drucker (2003) and Skirtz (2008) remind us that as social workers we have a moral and ethical responsibility to confront war and to speak about its impacts. Yet this is a topic that has not received its share of discussion and debate within the social work scholarship. While there are some discussions of social work’s role in working with war veterans on dealing with trauma (e.g. Beder, 2009; Martin, 2003) or on helping civilians to deal with the aftermath of war (e.g. Carranza, 2008; Kabeera and Sewpaul, 2008), a more politicized understanding of the profession’s role is necessary. Speaking of the emphasis on trauma discourses in relation to experiences of war, Bracken (1998) argues that this tendency within the helping professions has over-emphasized an individualistic reading of people’s experiences. This tendency is problematic not only because it renders secondary the social, political and cultural aspects of war and people’s experiences, but because it also obscures the fact that trauma discourses emanate from Western paradigms that are not universal, but are assumed to be.
To de-emphasize trauma discourses in social work would mean that we would be not only, or mainly, involved in dealing with the impacts of war, such as by offering psychosocial supports to disabled individuals and their families, but that we would also be implicated in collective advocacy to challenge and resist war. Working with activists such as those from the disability rights organization discussed in this article on addressing the challenges they confront would be one avenue to living a political commitment to resist war. Concretely, working alongside or within disability rights organizations, social workers could play a more active role in coordinating efforts among NGOs. Social workers could play a positive role in challenging political divisions and bridging the gap between services. Moreover, social workers could contribute to challenging foreign funder guidelines that may be limiting to local organizations. Social workers who are working within foreign funding international development organizations, could be more aware of and resist the tendency to impose intervention models and practices that may not be relevant or appropriate in the local context.
In addition, social workers could also be engaged in advocacy efforts to resist war where possible. This does not mean that social workers from the North should rush into war zones, as this could amount to ‘disaster tourism’; but for social workers who find themselves in contexts of war, there is a need to recognize that their role should not be limited to addressing the micro-level consequences of war on individuals and families. As Harding (2007) notes, there is a need for social work to be involved in addressing the macro policies that lead to war.
Finally, we need to shift our professional discourses towards recognition of people with disabilities as more than simply the recipients of services. Seeing people with disabilities as activists or potential resources would allow us to play the role of allies and to work alongside grassroots organizations to support them in advancing a disability rights agenda.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge the participation of the activists in this study and for their important work. Many thanks are also due to Lindsay Elin, MSW, for her work as Research Assistant on this study.
Funding
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.