Help physically challenged acquire skills

By Robert Anane,
GNA
 

Accra, Aug. 8, GNA –
Relatives of people with physical challenges, have been encouraged to assist
such relatives to learn vocations, skills and use talents that would help them
survive on their own.

“Bring out the
disabled because we have jobs for them. Do not hide them in rooms,” Mr. Anthony
Mensah, Board Chairman of the Ghana Society for the Socially Disadvantaged
(GSSD), said at the launch of the 60th anniversary of the GSSD, on Tuesday in
Accra.

The launch, which
was on the theme, “Preparing the Socially Disadvantaged for Service in
Humility,” was to heralds the actual celebration which comes off in December.

He said the GSSD
trained all categories of physically challenged persons, adding, “We have a job
bank where they go to work after they have been trained.”

Mr. Mensah said
whilst the 60th anniversary was in December, the launch was to enlighten the
public on issues concerning the physically challenged people.

He said considering
the potential that most of them possessed, it was quite a waste to have
physically challenged people begging as though they could not work for an
income.

He stressed that
begging did not need to be the lot of physically challenged people.

Mr. Mensah urged the
physically challenged, as well as their relatives to seek assistance from
appropriate bodies such as the GSSD, in order to become more useful to
themselves and the society at large.

Madam Otiko Afisa
Djaba, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, whose speech was
read on her behalf, observed that for the past 60 years, the GSSD had trained
disadvantaged people to work in a wide range of areas and led normal lives.

She said the
government was determined to empower disabled people in all ways possible.

The Gender Minister
said currently, the government had ensured that buildings were constructed with
due consideration to the needs of disabled persons.

She said the state
had employed about 70 disabled people to collect fees at toll booths, adding
that the government was also collaborating with a  number of private business outfits to ensure
that the physically challenged who could not be employed in the public sector
found other employment, whilst at the same time, promoted self- employment  amongst the disabled.

Ms Djaba said the
key aim of the government, amongst other factors, was to make issues of the
disabled an integral part of all institutions, and a key issue of the state.

She urged disabled
people to report any acts of disrespect or discrimination to the authorities,
in order for such perpetrators to be dealt with accordingly.

The Gender Minister
said the government was presently re-visiting the disability act, in a bid to
create an enabling environment that would promote the well-being of physically
challenged people.

The GSSD was formed
in 1958, to address the needs of the physically challenged.

GNA

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