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Infectious diseases such as meningitis, measles, mumps and chronic ear infections can lead to hearing impairment. Other common causes include exposure to excessive noise, head and ear injury, ageing and the use of ototoxic drugs.
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East Africa

: © CBM
Grace, from Tanzania, has Cerebral Palsy as the result of a fever when she was a baby. With the help of CBM partner Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT) she has achieved great independence and has entered mainstream education.

CBM's East Africa Regional Office oversees seven countries in the key mandated areas of eye care (including low vision), comprehensive orthopaedics and education of the visually impaired, deaf and deafblind.

East Africa Regional Office

©CBM: Kirstin Bostelmann

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Acting Regional Director Kirstin Lee Bostelmann

Email: kbostelmann@cbmi-nbo.org

The East Africa Regional Office is found in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. This office oversees CBM’s work in the seven East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti. A Country Co-ordination Office is located in Tanzania and in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The establishment of a co-ordination office in Uganda is under consideration.

This region is under the leadership of a Regional Director, who is supported by a Leadership Team comprising of Country Co-ordinators, Capacity Development Officer, Communications Officer, Chief Operations Officer and a Finance & Administration Manager.

CBM works with over 100 implementing partners in the key mandated areas of eye care (including low vision), comprehensive orthopaedics, Community based Rehabilitation (CBR) and education of the visually impaired, deaf and deaf-blind. CBM in East Africa also collaborates with a diverse range of alliance and networking partners.

Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Sudan have signed the UN Convention for the Rights for People with Disabilities. Tanzania, Uganda and Sudan have also signed the optional protocol. Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia have strong disability platforms. Additionally, Millennium Development Goals 1, 2 and 3 regarding eradication of poverty, universal primary education and gender equality and empowerment of woman are moving forward quite well in these countries.

Current priorities and guiding principles

Our current priorities are:

To maintain service delivery in eye care, orthopaedics and community based rehabilitation.
To ensure that there is good planning, monitoring and evaluation in place for new and existing initiatives with partners in the region.
To build up a strong Regional Office team that will be actively engaged in the capacity development of partners.
To continue the good links with disability stakeholders working in similar mandates.

CBM’s key strategic implementing partners in this region are the Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation of Tanzania (CCBRT), Association of the Physically Disabled of Kenya (APDK), Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services of Uganda (CoRSU) and the Community Based Rehabilitation Network (CBR-N) of Ethiopia.

These partners provide a wide scope and reach of work, with national staff competencies in many elements of the CBR Matrix and are well recognised by their national governments.

The East Africa Regional Office is in the process of developing a regional strategy for the next five years (2011 – 2015).

The guiding principles will be:

Consolidation - rationalisation of CBM’s work in the region in order to improve efficiency.
Ownership - encouragement and guidance will be given by working with partners to build a continuing sense of ownership in progamme work.
Sustainability - Through working with partners, effective strategies will be developed to strengthen partners’ sustainability.
Capacity Development - Considering the existing strengths of partners and jointly identifying gaps and possible solutions.
Inclusion - In line with CBM’s core value to practice and promote an inclusive society, this will be an integral component of regional development planning.