Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 13, 2008 News
The National Commission on Disability recently hosted a two-day workshop for Disabled People’s Organisations at the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre (Red House), Kingston, Georgetown.
Under the theme, ‘Rights-based Approach to Disability,’ the workshop dealt with the issue of challenging society to fulfill the rights of persons with disabilities (PWD). Discussions were held on disability as a human rights issue. The aim of the workshop was to ensure that all disabled persons understand human rights and how it can impact on their daily lives, since most disabled individuals are not aware of their human rights.
The ‘rights-based approach to disability’ aspect of the workshop dealt with challenging society to address the invisibility of persons with disability.
It is hoped that by better understanding disability as a human rights issue, persons with disabilities will be able to better analyse the disability issues and identify how to overcome the challenges that face them.
Importantly, too, the training was geared at briefing the participants on the key points of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the Government of Guyana has signed but has yet to ratify.
After welcoming remarks by NCD Office Administrator Beverly Pile, the Honourable Indra Chandrapal, Chairperson, Parliamentary Sectorial Commmittee on Social Services, stressed the need for the related organizations to analyze their work and come up with new approaches.
She added that disabled persons should not be seen as subjects of charity, but as objects with rights instead.
She touched on the misconception of persons with disabilities being viewed as objects of terror by some parents when attempting to discipline their children. She said this will eventually contribute to negative concepts surrounding the very existence of disabled persons, and can also lead to discrimination. With an estimated 50,000 people with disabilities in Guyana, it is now more important than ever to understand disability as a global human rights issue, one that affects the entire Guyanese society.
According to Ms Chandrapal, parents and teachers play an integral role in detecting young children with disabilities, and thorough investigations ought to be made to decide when a particular child is not excelling academically if it may be as a result of one or more defects.
She also indicated that there is need for enough information to make persons better able to detect and deal with persons with disabilities.
Her discussion emphasized the need for ramps at various businesses to facilitate free movement by disabled persons, even as it denounced those who chain disabled persons and use other inhuman methods they deemed fit to restrain them.
Chandrapal encouraged the National Commission on Disability to work with private and public sector entities to assist disabled persons. She said the Social Sectorial Committee will do all in its power to ensure the Job Disability Bill, which is presently with the Ministry of Health, become active.
She also called on the commission to create a radio programme to sensitise the public on important issues surrounding disability. She concluded by wishing the workshop participants success at the end of the two-day venture, before declaring the event open.
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