Henry Michael Wimile

Henry Michael Wimile (born March 13, 1962 in Njombe , Tanzania , † June 18, 2008 ) was a pioneer for the recognition of the rights of people with disabilities in Tanzania.

Life

Henry Michael Wimile was born on March 13, 1962 in Njombe, Tanzania. At the age of eleven he became blind due to an injury while playing and switched from his previous elementary school to the blind school in Buigiri near Dodoma . After leaving school, he attended integration classes in Shinyanga and Mzumbe and successfully completed the A levels . In 1988, Wimile enrolled at the University of Dar es Salaam and graduated in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in education and a master's degree in public administration.

During his studies, he began to get involved in the still young disability movement and, together with Zefania Kalumuna , another blind intellectual, founded the Information Center on Disability (ICD) in 1998 , where he served on the board. Above all, he campaigned for the recognition of the rights of people with disabilities in the political framework. One result of the efforts was that the government of Tanzania took the rights of people with disabilities fully into account in its national poverty reduction strategy.

In 2004 Wimile became national coordinator of the Tanzania Early Childhood Development and Education Network (TECDEN), in 2005 he developed and launched the pilot project “Inclusive Tanzania” together with Licht für die Welt . This project sees people with disabilities as legal entities and aims at their equal participation in all areas of life. He accompanied the project in the following years and worked to build a broad coalition of organizations for the disabled.

On June 18, 2008, Henry Wimile died unexpectedly of a malaria infection, leaving behind his wife and four minor children.

Web links

• Light for the world
• Tanzania Early Childhood Development and Education Network
• Inclusive Tanzania
• WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD)