Star children development intitative ,an NGO, says it has embarked on measures to reduce poverty among the Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in Lagos
The Manager of the NGO, Mrs Adelani Fadeola while speaking with the journalist over the week said that this month is mapped out to celebrate women all over the world because women are unique, beautiful and special with a lot of talent.
Our objective of holding this program since over five years now for persons with disabilities is to assist PWDs to be useful to the society, not a liability and help reduce poverty among themselves and society at large.
According to her, persons with disabilities is being neglected, people tends to forget them in the scheme of things due to stigmatiztion and discrimination. Persons with Disabilities are humans, some of them are married with children and many of them have excelled in different endeavours. It is always during awareness program that those with talents was discovered, initially all these talents are hidden,it is programs of this nature that we discovered some of them. Government should support and assist them with capacity building and grants/loans to boost their businesses.
One of the speakers, Mrs Foluke Ademokun spoke on the topic: Disability Gender-Based Violence :Protecting Women&Girls with Disabilities in Nigeria.
Ihuoma Sussan Kelechi, in her speech noted that people do not speak out in term of physical and domestic violent ,the awareness is still low
Ihuoma said that over 80 percent of person with disabilities abuser is very close to them, right inside with them, people do not understand that our abuser is right with us, these are issues we face on daily basis, it is problem without protection and nobody want to understand us. “I am an adult with disability as a result of Polio, she said.
Most time, terrible things happens to us, due to culture which is another problem on its own, our abuser keep abusing us physically, emotionally, finicanally and we keep quite,we do not let people know about it because they are closed to us.
Narrating her ordeal when growing up, as a child, I suffered domestic violence so the kind of conversation pertaining Gender Based Violence that I am hearing make me feel bad and psychological down. There are little or no awareness and as such many Persons with Disabilities are tagged by their families as liabilities or evil in some cases.
I joined the campaign to enlighten the public that PWDs need to be equipped with skills so that they could have access to available opportunities. Our major challenges is infrastructural barrier so it need urgent attention, with policies that will work to protect and also deserve social protection and if it is implemented.
She noted that there is a Disability act at National Level but nothing is happening about implementation. It is only Lagos State have law and they are making tremendous impact in the implementation. if the Federal government fails to implement the act, how are we going to benefit from it.
Another speaker Mrs Emmanuella Akinola, who spoke on Maintaining Sustainable livelihood :An Entrepreneurship Pathway For Women With Disabilities -Discuss,said that persons with disabilities need to be entrepreneur and have to understand the type of business they want to execute before embarking on it. Persons with disabilities have a lot of opportunities.
Nowadays with the help of technology persons with disabilities will excel if they know what type of businesses they want to invest on especially women with disabilities, they have greater opportunity in some cases, disability itself is recruiting if the person is highly skilled.
I am living with person with disability, so I understand disability, government should not abandon them, I’m appealing to them so that they should rethink and reconsider them in any subsequent job.
Also speaking, at the event, a brand Ambassador and co-ordnatior,Star Children Development Intitative, Assumpta Khalin, said that we use this occasion to celebrate women with disabilities on international women day and also reiterated the commitment of the foundation which is to ensure that persons living with disabilities is not at a disadvantage in the society due to their condition.
With the support from Zenith Bank plc since last two years, many have benefited with grant to boost their businesses, we will continue to do our best and utilitize the grants well. While we are still appealing with other relevant stakeholders to support persons with disabilities to break the barriers, government could do what it is expected of them, the society is collaborating in that process, poverty among PWDs would be greatly reduced. Even those who beg for alms alongs the roads would also be positively impacted.
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