Habilitation / Rehabilitation
Building a capacity never present versus restoring one that was lost β different goals, programmes, and measures. Neither aims at normalisation; both aim at functional capacity and participation.
Knowledge base
Inclusive Community Development Glossary
A clear guide to concepts and terms connected to disability rights and inclusive community development.
22 termsLast reviewed: September 2026
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Inclusion / Inclusive Education
Not the child's presence in the school, but the school's transformation to fit the child. Placement leaves the child to adapt or fail while the school stays as it was. Special classes inside a mainstream school are segregation within the same building.
Independent Living / Living in the Community
"Independent" means the decision is yours, not that you manage alone. Institutionalisation is a deprivation of the right to live in the community, and a smaller building is not inclusion if control still sits elsewhere.
Legal Capacity / Supported Decision-Making
The Convention separates mental capacity from legal capacity and holds that the second cannot be removed on the grounds of the first. The shift is from guardianship, which transfers the decision, to support, which keeps the decision with its owner. The test: who holds the decision in the end?
Meaningful Participation β Nothing About Us Without Us
A ladder: informed, consulted after design, participating in design, sharing the decision. The test: can participants' views change the outcome? If not, it was a presentation.
Multiple Discrimination / Intersectionality
Not three separable barriers but one compound situation. Programmatically, inclusion programmes often reach urban boys more than rural girls, then evaluate as successful because the data was never disaggregated.
Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs)
Organisations *of*, not *for*. The test is who holds decision-making power, not whether disabled members exist. The CRPD obliges states to consult OPDs specifically; conflating them lets the consultation requirement be met in form only.
Persons with Disabilities
The correct term in the CRPD and Egyptian Law 10/2018. Person first, attribute second. Avoided: "the disabled", "special needs" (obscures legal obligation), "people of determination" (places the burden of heroism on the individual), "suffers from", "wheelchair-bound".
Why these terms?
These terms follow international standards and good practice while respecting Egyptian and Arabic context.
Suggest a new term or correction
We welcome contributions that strengthen and improve this glossary.