About the Platform Manara is an inclusive, comprehensive digital platform designed to empower persons with disabilities and professionals supporting them in Aden. It serves as a unified and accessible gateway to training opportunities, employment, financing, apprenticeships, technical consultations, and specialized services. The platform also provides a dedicated marketplace to promote small businesses, professional services, and entrepreneurial initiatives led by persons with disabilities. Manara is a key component of the Livelihoods Project, implemented by Benaa Foundation for Development with support from Handicap International – BMZ.
Message
To provide an interactive, accessible, and disability-inclusive digital environment that connects persons with disabilities to skills development, training, opportunities, and employers—while ensuring equitable access to resources and services that enhance their social and economic participation and celebrate their achievements.
Vision
Your inclusive digital lighthouse for leadership and empowerment of persons with disabilities and those working alongside them.
Goal
1. Enhancing Inclusive Access to Knowledge and Digital Resources To establish a unified, accessible digital gateway that enables persons with disabilities—as well as practitioners and service providers—to easily access training programs, educational resources, research, and an inclusive digital library. This contributes to sustainable skills development and ensures equitable access for all users. 2. Supporting Economic Empowerment and Inclusive Entrepreneurship To expand access to employment opportunities, apprenticeships, entrepreneurial ventures, business incubation, micro-financing, and specialized advisory services. The platform also features an inclusive promotional space for showcasing enterprises and success stories of persons with disabilities, reinforcing inspiration, dignity, and equitable economic participation. 3. Building an Integrated, Supportive, and Inclusive Community To create a digital ecosystem that includes an accessible, interactive service map connecting users with government institutions, the private sector, local and international organizations, and associations of persons with disabilities. This supports stronger collaboration, inclusive service coordination, knowledge exchange, and user-friendly access to essential services.
