When Donetta Jardine graduated from the David Rose School 11 years ago life seemed bleak as she felt the world of work was not ready for her physical disability.
She did some cosmetology classes but felt it would be difficult to ply her trade because she is deaf. However, not one to allow her disability to hinder her Jardine persevered and today at the age of 31 she is not into cosmetology but she is satisfied with the direction her life has taken as she has a job which pays her a salary that she is comfortable with.
Jardine says she owes it all to the Guyana Community Based Rehabilitation Programme (GCBRP), popular known as CBR, which not only granted her employment but over the years has helped her build her self-confidence and assisted her in becoming computer literate.
This young woman is not the only person with a disability who the CBR has assisted; the sole purpose of the organisation’s existence is to assist persons with disabilities.
National Advisor of the organisation, Geraldine Maison-Halls, in an interview with Stabroek News said it was not the CBR’s policy to find employment for persons. What the organization does is assist them in becoming confident so that they can seek employment. It also offers scholarships for persons to study. More importantly, the organisation offers loans to business-minded persons so they can open their own business.
One person that took up the opportunity to open a business is Jenette Jordon who is blind but who was brave enough to open a day care centre, as, according to her, she has always had a special love for children.
Today Jordon no longer has her business, having suffered tremendous losses during the 2004/2005 Great Flood.
“But I know one day I would open my centre again I have not given up and I am very grateful to CBR,” she recently said.
Jordon said she had a visual impairment since she was a young child but she was able to finish school. It was after she was married and had a child that she lost her sight completely. She said that CBR has really motivated her to look to the future optimistically. She has taken business skills classes at the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) with the help of the organisation.
Jordon said she has been associated with CBR for the past nine years and they have been the best nine years of her life since she became totally blind. She said she used to be afraid to approach persons because of her disability but now she is much more confident.
Jordon had received training in hotel management in her younger days and worked with Le Meridien Pegasus for a number of years and even taught at one time.
She also has a Diploma in Sociology and does some business classes at the Business School. Jordon is not one to let her mind idle and with a partial scholarship from the organisation she took some language classes but was forced to discontinue because of her difficult financial circumstances.
“Our development is hindered because of our disability. Persons see disability as non-progressive and would not lend a helping hand to us,” Jordon said.
She pointed out that even though she has been trained in the business sector no one would hire her because she is blind.
But undaunted, she keeps trying and will until her dream of reopening her day care centre becomes a reality.
GCBRP came into existence in 1986 and it aims at promoting the participation of persons with disabilities and their families in meeting their own needs within local communities. It mobilizes action in communities through a network of capable and committed volunteers and supporters who work with government, non-government organisations, the private sector and the public to, “
