Tanzania is a country of more than 63 million people. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 15 percent of any national population lives with some form of disability — which means that as many as nine million Tanzanians may be navigating daily life with a physical, sensory, cognitive, or psychosocial impairment. Yet across the country, children and adults with disabilities remain among the most excluded members of society. Disability inclusion in Tanzania is not just a social justice issue — it is one of the most urgent human development challenges the country faces. And sport is one of the most effective tools available to address it.
The Reality of Disability in Tanzania
Tanzania ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2010. But policy and lived reality remain far apart. Children with disabilities in Tanzania are significantly less likely to attend school than their peers. Those who do access education frequently encounter inadequate facilities, undertrained teachers, inaccessible classrooms, and social environments that are unwelcoming at best and hostile at worst.
The consequences of this exclusion ripple outward across an entire lifetime. Children who are excluded from education and community participation grow into adults with fewer economic opportunities, poorer health outcomes, and reduced civic engagement.
Why Sport Is a Uniquely Powerful Tool for Inclusion
When a child with cerebral palsy and a child without any disability play boccia side by side, something happens that a classroom lecture on inclusion cannot achieve. They see each other. They communicate. They compete and cooperate. Stereotypes dissolve in the heat of play.
Inclusive sport also builds the confidence and physical competence of children with disabilities in ways that extend far beyond the playing field. A child who has experienced the discipline of training, the joy of teamwork, and the pride of competition is a different child from one who has spent their formative years being told that sport is not for them.
The Barriers That Remain
Stigma is perhaps the most pervasive barrier to disability inclusion in Tanzania. In many communities, disability is understood through a spiritual or moral lens — as punishment or misfortune. This stigma prevents children from accessing services and creates social environments where children with disabilities are marginalized from the moment they are born.
Poverty compounds everything. Adaptive sports equipment, specialist coaching, transportation to training sites, and specialized educational support all cost money that most families in Tanzania do not have. Lack of awareness is a third barrier — and in many ways the most solvable. When teachers, coaches, community leaders, and parents understand what children with disabilities are capable of, attitudes shift remarkably quickly.
How Cheza Foundation Is Advancing Disability Inclusion in Tanzania
Cheza Foundation was founded on a simple but radical belief: that every child in Tanzania deserves to play. Our programs use inclusive sport — blind football, boccia, cerebral palsy sports, and autism-friendly physical activity — as engines of social inclusion. We work directly in schools and communities across Dar es Salaam, training coaches, providing equipment, running awareness campaigns, and creating spaces where children with and without disabilities can learn from each other through play.
Be Part of the Change
Disability inclusion in Tanzania will not happen on its own. It requires investment, attention, and sustained effort from donors, grant funders, volunteers, and advocates — in Tanzania and around the world.
Visit Cheza Foundation’s website to find out how you can support disability inclusion in Tanzania today.
CHEZA FOUNDATION 