Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network (EDAN)

The mission of the Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network (EDAN) is to support the work of individuals, churches and church organisations concerned with issues affecting disabled people globally. Created after the World Council of Churches' Eighth Assembly in Zimbabwe in 1998, the network envisaged an all-inclusive approach to ecumenical work from the very start.

EDAN's main purpose, as set out in its constitution, is to advocate for the inclusion, participation, and active involvement of persons with disabilities in the spiritual, social and development life of church and society.

Its goals are to maintain an active network of people with disabilities, to improve their situation by providing the space for their contributions and gifts to the ecumenical movement and the churches, and to hold up this network as a distinctive ecumenical contribution to new models of being the church.

CBM wants to use the global Christian community as an ally in our quest for inclusion of persons with disability in all aspects of society. EDAN provides a ready-made platform to influence those Protestant church groups who are members of the World Council of Churches. Our main aim in collaboration with EDAN is to influence the training of future leaders in those churches by encouraging all their theological institutions to teach a biblical theology of inclusion.

Dr Sam Kabue, a Consultant/Executive Secretary of EDAN, is also a board member of CBM Kenya.