Over 30 Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) will benefit from an annual $20M government disbursement to boost job creation among people living with disabilities.
This announcement was made yesterday when President Bharrat Jagdeo met with representatives from across the country at the Police Officers’ Mess, Eve Leary, where he said that the main aim was to ensure that people living with a disability become a part of Guyana’s nation building and lead productive lives.
Jagdeo explained that individual organisations would decide how the money they receive would be spent, while adding that through the current provision and future pledges these organisations would experience progressive changes. In addition to making the differently-abled community more productive, he said the support is geared towards job creation and he cited call centres as one of the fields where this may be realised.
In March, Jagdeo had pledged increased funding for projects aimed at creating a real and sustainable income for citizens who are differently-abled.
The pledge would be annual he told the audience. “It will be every year in the budget and you will be getting top up money so that we can fund these initiatives directly apart from the initiatives that the government will fund to the various ministries dealing with the people living with disability,” he said.
According to Jagdeo, the support would allow every one living with a disability to contribute their ideas to formulating a programme that will make a difference in their lives. “This is what I wanted to launch because once the [Persons with Disabilities Act] is passed, the Act will be progressing improvements in the way that people with disability are treated and the way that the facilities that we build now will [accommodate] the disabled persons,” he added.
Jagdeo admitted that much more has to be done in Guyana to ensure that a better environment is created for persons with disabilities, so that they know that they can make contributions to the nation. He added that the government plans for all citizens to be part of the future it is trying to build. “A time will come that we will have to import labourers but the best thing to do is to make sure that all our people are contributing,” he said.
In addition, Jagdeo said that before the end of the first quarter of next year, some 57,000 families would benefit from the one Laptop Per Family (OLPF) programme and he emphasised that persons living with disabilities within these families would be given priority. “They would go right top of the list… so the first batch of computers that would be distributed would be to the people living with different forms of disabilities,” he said.
Meanwhile, Leon Walcott, Chairman of the Guyana Council of Organisations for Persons with Disabilities, thanked government for the support while highlighting the importance of training and capacity building. He added that as long as that is done, they will manage the money, account for it and also prioritise activities aimed at making life better for persons living with disabilities.
The gathering, during an interactive session, was given the opportunity to share ideas on how the money can be used for development as well as discuss how to structure the use of the resources. Vehicles designated to transport persons with disabilities, entrepreneurial activities for skills training and business along with job creation were the main issues raised by the attendees.
