The Leonard Cheshire Disability Young Voices Guyana group is urging parliamentarians to support and hasten the implementation of the Persons with Disability Act, as this group continues to be marginalised.
In a press release, the group recalled that on November 2, 2010, then president Bharrat Jagdeo assented to the bill bringing it into law. Saturday marked the third anniversary of the Act and to date minimal progress has been made in its implementation, particularly in the areas of employment of persons with disabilities; access to transportation and public buildings and access to information.
Ensuring persons with disabilities have access to services that would allow them to have decent livelihoods is not a priority on government’s agenda and as such a small amount of resources has been put into realising the Act, the group said. Teshawn Rodney, president of its Linden chapter, urges government to “Implement the Act and support us to be independent and productive citizens of Guyana.”
The Act was developed via the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as its reference document and guided by the principles of the said Convention, the press release said.
