Christine Peta
- Disability, Public Health Care and Development Practitioner, University of Cape Town Faculty of Health Sciences
- Founder, Disability Centre for Africa
- University of Cape Town, Health
Biography
Christine is a disability, public health care and development practitioner, who has held senior management and leadership, positions in both local and international development organisations. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree, two Masters Degrees and a PhD from the Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Cape Town. Christine realized that disabled women form one of the most marginalized minority groups in the world, hence in her PhD studies, she sought to explore the sexual and reproductive health experiences of disabled women in Zimbabwe. She is the founder of Disability Centre for Africa, a non-profit organisation that advocates for the mainstreaming of disability in all development programmes, thereby campaigning for the entrenchment of disability into existing development frameworks, agendas and processes. Christine’s greatest challenge has been to argue against an international disability discourse which is underpinned by purely Western ideologies and which runs the risk of dismissing African traditional knowledge as mere cultural beliefs or superstition.
Read our interview with Christine to learn more about her work.
Greatest Achievement
Becoming the first Zimbabwean to obtain a PhD in Disability Studies and the second in Africa to obtain the degree from the University of Cape Town.
Professional Interests
Disability and development, public health care, indigenous health care systems, sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child mortality, strengthening development and health care systems within African contexts.