ABSTRACT
In order to better understand disability in a post-conflict and post-colonial context, it is important to undertake a historical and socio-cultural analysis of disability. This is certainly true in Sierra Leone, where basic infrastructure and service delivery for disabled people is being re-implemented by a combination of local and international stakeholders. Employing a historical perspective allows an investigation of the relationship between impairment and disability from a cross-cultural perspective. It also creates attentiveness to the impact of a colonial history. In West African countries, like Sierra Leone, a traditional model of disability is found within an oral tradition rich with stories, myths, and proverbs that historically document the important roles that people with impairments have played socially, politically, economically and culturally in both rural and urban communities. Poverty is understood in terms of ones social inability to be part of a family and extensive kinship network. Impairment only becomes disabling if it inhibits a person from having a productive role.
