The Guyana Council of Organisations for Persons with Disabilities is advocating for more initiatives that would allow persons with disabilities to develop their talents and skills to the benefit of the nation.
Despite many initiatives, persons with disabilities still remain excluded from much of mainstream social life and have limited access to training opportunities to develop their various talents, speakers said at an observance for Commonwealth Day on Monday, hosted by the Council and the Commonwealth Youth Programme Caribbean Centre (CYP) at the National Cultural Centre.
In a press release, Council Chairman Leon Walcott, who has been working with young people for over three decades, acknowledged the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports contribution to the Council and spoke at length about the accomplishments of persons with disabilities in sport. “Dollar for dollar, athletes with disabilities have been more successful at the international level than those without,” he said.
In her address, acting Regional Director of the CYP Glenyss James, meanwhile, urged school students to think of new and innovative ways of helping young people with disabilities maximise their potential.
“Your social networking and technological skills come to mind immediately as tools for obtaining and sharing the necessary information to accelerate our efforts at greater inclusion,” she said. James also acknowledged government and development agencies, NGOs and “those persons who have dedicated years of hard work in development programmes for persons with disabilities we at CYP are committing today to work with you towards greater inclusion and ultimately the mainstreaming of young persons with disabilities.”
Further, she urged persons with disabilities, to “keep advocating for the policy changes and the implementation of those polices.”
Minister of Culture Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony also lamented that stigma and stereotypes are still attributed to families with children born with physical impairments, adding that such “ignorance” still prevails in the society.
The minister also observed that the community of persons living with disabilities has not been given enough opportunities to explore and utilise their talents for the benefit of others and called for greater stakeholder collaboration in supporting them. He noted that now there is an even greater urgency for the establishment of a Paralympics Committee in Guyana.
Several attempts have been made to constitute the body in recent years, but it has encountered many hurdles—chief among them being the failure to include persons living with disabilities on that committee.
Anthony, at the function, pledged to build a ramp leading to the stage of the National Culture Centre to facilitate persons with physical disabilities.
The release said a wide cross section of persons comprising students, teachers, government officials and members of the diplomatic corps were treated to song and dance performances by persons with disabilities and their peers. Schemona Trinidad, a blind singer from Berbice and Kwasi Cox kept the audience enthralled with a stirring rendition of “When you Believe.” There were also dances by the Megatronics, a group of five deaf students and a hearing student from the Linden Special School, the Icebreakers, a group of deaf youths joined by a hearing member of the National School of Dance, and the Signal, a deaf dance and drama group at the David Rose Special School.
Queen Elizabeth II, in her Commonwealth Day Message, which was read by Head Girl at the Bishops’ High School Prudence Julien, noted that this year’s theme, ‘Connecting Cultures Moving Towards Greater Inclusion,’ “encourages us to consider the special opportunities we have, as members of this unique gathering of nations, to celebrate an extraordinary cultural tapestry that reflects our many individual and collective identities. The Commonwealth treasures and respects this wealth of diversity.”
