Inclusive Education in Belize using PDIA
Christy Almeida, Programme Coordinator for the Special Education Unit in Belize, has made it her mission to bring voices to the voiceless and expand awareness and resources for children with special needs.
In this video, Matt Andrews interviews Christy about her team’s journey using PDIA to advance inclusive and special needs education in Belize’s resource-constrained context. Starting with a small, diverse team, they quickly realized that “inclusive education” was too broad to address as a single issue. By breaking the challenge into two parts—supporting students with mild to moderate needs and those with moderate to profound disabilities—they gained clarity and a framework that continues to guide all of their work.
Using a fishbone analysis, the team mapped core barriers such as lack of diagnosis and early intervention, limited teacher training, low parental awareness, stigma, and scarce resources. Rather than waiting for ideal solutions, they focused on small, practical actions, beginning with “inclusion corners” in schools. This simple idea scaled into a national, online inclusion platform and later into Teachers for Teachers (T for T), a peer-support network that helped build teacher confidence, share strategies, and reduce isolation while steadily expanding available resources.
As momentum grew, the team also confronted the lack of data on special education needs. Through partnerships and an iterative survey process, they collected information from 76 schools and 830 teachers, generating Belize’s first usable picture of where support was needed. While this success led to a surge in referrals and new capacity challenges, Almeida emphasizes that PDIA made progress possible by encouraging action, learning, and adaptation—accepting that solving complex problems means moving step by step, even as new challenges emerge.
Watch the full interview:
[Update since the interview] The historic disabilities bill was passed in Belize in July 2024. See the Front page of the Belize Times.
