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Two Hundred representatives of all people with disability (PWDs) from all the 16 regions of Ghana have held a two-day International Persons with Disability Empowerment Conference (INPEWDEC) in Accra.
The conference, which was on the theme “Empowering persons with disabilities, promoting inclusivity, equity and sustainable development”, called on citizens to stop discriminating against PWDs in society.
It was organised by a non-governmental organisation, Sustainable Development in Africa (S-DIA Advocacy LBG and partners) and sponsored by the World Food Programme (WFP), with support from Sedofa Consultancy, Dwills Media, SWEB Ghana, Absa Bank and Ghana Schools.
In the panel discussions, participants discussed their collective role in fostering an inclusive environment, challenges faced by PWDs in their various communities and ways to mitigate them, barriers that prevented PWDs from fully participating in social activities, challenges faced in employment among others.
They were also taught introduction to vegetable and snail farming, mushroom farming, liquid and powered soap making and introduction to resin arts production. They were taught business management: records keeping, managing profits and losses as small skill enterprises.
There were also plenary sessions on building supportive communities, a WFP inclusive arena and presentations on community-based support programmes and initiatives.
In his opening remark, the Executive Director, Sustainable Development in Africa (S-DIA) Advocacy LBG and Partners, Samson Kweku Kakah, said his organisation and partners were excited for the representatives from all the 16 regions to have converged on Accra for the conference, from which they were going to share with the rest when they got back to their respective regions.
He said the historic conference reflected their shared vision of a society where everyone, regardless of ability, had the opportunity to thrive.
He stated that INPEWDEC 2024 served more than an event because it was a call for action. He said the platform brought over 200 individuals, including PWDs, experts, donor agencies and stakeholders united in their commitment to address the systemic barriers that limited opportunities for PWDs across Ghana and neighbouring countries and hoped every participant was going to ensure they took something home.
At the end of the programme, the President of Ghana Blind Union for the La Nkwantanang District, Joseph Seyena-Susu, commended S-DIA Advocacy LBG and Partners for taking important steps in putting the needs of PWDs to the fore by training them in different skills which would go a long way to help them.
He, therefore, encouraged other organisations to follow the steps of S-DIA Advocacy LBG and partners. He asked the government to take firm action when it came to the empowerment of PWDs.
The Director of SWEB Ghana, David Norden Botwey, who shared community-based participatory action research on Access to Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities in the Sekyere-Afram Plains District in Ghana, said findings from the study presented information for analysing the barriers to accessing inclusive education for children with disabilities in the country.
The findings, he said, would have the potential to forge collaboration among stakeholders in the district to promote inclusive education for children with disabilities.
Mr Kakah said there are PWDs who are lawyers, teachers, psychologists, caterers, statisticians among others and there should be no situation where they would be looked down upon.
He said the training had equipped the participants with entrepreneurship skills and they should go back to their various regions and share what they had learnt to empower their colleagues, adding “there would be follow up to every region to empower you.”
A representative of the PWDs, Charity Akpesah, expressed the participants’ gratitude and joy to the organisations and assured them that they were going to make an impact on their colleagues when they returned.
