CBM, together with its Partner Organisations, acts upon the needs and rights of Persons with Disabilities. 16.9 million people worldwide benefit from CBM's support. However, much more needs to be done because there are an estimated 500 million Persons with Disabilities living in low and middle income countries.

As well as experiencing difficulty in either seeing, hearing, walking or psychosociall well-being, they are often excluded from school, access to health care, employment opportunities and inclusion in family and community activities.

CBM supports the provision of more than 1000 programmes in over 100 countries in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, and Latin America. Fields of work include health care services, education, rehabilitation and inclusion services for people with disabilities. Wherever possible, it is the aim to provide these services within the community. Therefore, Community-Based Rehabilitation programmes are promoted.

Support in Concrete

The focus of CBM's work is to enable local and national partners in developing countries to implement services for people with disabilities, mainly for people with

• Visual disabilities,
• Hearing disabilities,
• Physical disabilities,
• Psychosocial disabilities, or
• Intellectual disabilities.

In addition, CBM runs interdisciplinary programmes. These include the secondment of staff to CBM's partner organisations, and vocational training and employment for persons with disabilities, as well as disaster relief, in case a project is affected.