By Mustapha Kamara Jnr
The African Youths with Disability Network (AYDN), a local civil society organization, Monday began training for 23 disable people on how to develop policies and advocate for the promotion and protection of the rights of People With Disability (PWD).
The training session is being held at the organizations offices on Siaka Stevens Street in Freetown.
The idea is to build the capability of disable youths on laws and policies on disability issues and on how to be better advocates for PWD, said Abubakar Bangura, program coordinator, African Youths with Disability Network.
Bangura told Politico that the program was part of a one-year ninety-thousand dollars project that is funded by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and intended to prepare disable youths so that they would be able to train other disable youths across the country. He said AYDN realized over the years that there were many national and international documents and organizations seeking to promote the rights of PWD’s but that little or nothing was been done to implement fully the provisions stipulated in such documents.
“Some of those considerations and provisions made to protect the rights of persons with disability in Sierra Leone are just a mere decoration because we are not seeing much, they are not fully implemented,” Bangura said.
The OSIWA-funded program is targeting over 50 disable youths in Kono, Bo, Kabala and Freetown and it aims to enable the beneficiaries to become better positioned to advocate on things that are affecting them and other disables.
Mohamed Kamara, a participant at the workshop, commended the organizers for conducting the training, noting that there was really a need for disable people to advocate for the full implementation of documents such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as Sierra Leone`s Disability Act of 2011.
“Amidst all the laws promoting and protecting the rights of people with disability, yet we are still faced with lots of challenges like unemployment and marginalization,” Kamara lamented.
Meanwhile, this first leg of the training will end on Wednesday 18th March and it`s expected to be followed by sessions scheduled for Kono, Kabala and Bo.
© Politico 17/03/15
