Abigail Ewen

Abigail Ewen is a PhD student from the institute of risk and disaster reduction at University College London with previous experiences of research in East Africa for UN agencies, government and non-government organisations. 

She is a former president of The Peterborough Rotaract Club who have collaborated with The Rotary Club of Peterborough Orton’s on a number of occasions on local projects in their area. 

Her PHD project asks, through the case of the 2015 Ghorka earthquake Nepal, if urgent disaster response and resilience building has enabled or hindered struggles for inclusion in public life and collective action, through the acute experiences of people with disabilities. It tracks how those currently identifying as disabled experienced the 2015 earthquake in the central Nepal and its recovery and the ways that response and resilience building has impacted on or been used to change the way disability is imagined and incorporated in policy and legislation. 

The talk will introduce her PhD work in Nepal revealing the experiences, stories and knowledge of people with disabilities and their local organisations and reflect on the importance of localising initiatives in order to contribute to sustainable interventions that are driven from the ground up.