Government not doing enough for disabled persons - says advocate

Government not doing enough for disabled persons – says advocate

Jul 26, 2011 News

The Disabled People’s Network (DPN) Annual Camp has begun. The venue is the New Amsterdam Special Needs School in Vryman’s Erven.
According to the President of the organization, Zoya Crandon, the camp began last Saturday and will runs until July 29. The theme is “Working together to achieve success”. Campers will engage in activities such as lectures about HIV/AIDS, Disability and sexuality, stress management, etiquette, disability and sports, camp- fires as well as an election of new officer bearers for DPN in the new term.
The annual event has attracted 27 people and aims at bringing disabled people together. “Without unity, success cannot be achieved. We want to emphasize independent living skills for them”, Crandon said.
One of the participants, Annetta Reece, who is visually-impaired, said that “so far it’s good. It’s good to come out and interact with each other. You learn about one another”.
She said that it was her second time at the camp and said that the most important thing is learning where the washroom is and being able to find those places without people’s help.
Another participant, Grace Gillis, who suffers from a spinal disability, said that the camp has been goof d so far, because it brings different persons from different regions.
Mr Adams, who has speech impairment and is from the East Coast of Demerara, said that he has been enjoying the camp. “It is so good to me that I can come out and meet other people like myself and have a chat with them.
“This is my second visit and I expect to be in good health and good strength. I trust that it will be a benefit to me and my fellow colleagues who are here with me”, he said.
Tyrone Talbot, a former U.S. Army officer, who is spending his time with the disabled persons during the camp, is not satisfied with the manner in which the government has been treating differently-abled persons in Guyana, especially since the Disabled People’s Bill was passed last year in the National Assembly.
He said that these people are differently-abled and not disabled, “because there’s nothing disabling about them. They just do things differently from us”.
He said that he is willing to use his influence to advocate on their behalf to bring about change. The legislation, he said, still has not been implemented, “which is an insult to this population”.
“I don’t see any Government luminaries here in attendance for this small but important launching and that is also an insult. I think Guyanese as a whole need to come on board and support our differently- abled brothers and sisters”.
Talbot said that the differently-abled are not looking for handouts, but are “looking for people top help them become independent and responsible for their own destiny and future and dreams just like we are”.
He is not satisfied with the way the authorities treat disabled persons in Guyana. Having served in the Iraq war, Talbot said, “Iraq was a broken country, and had a far better—when I left in 2004—system to address the needs of its differently-abled population than Guyana has, and Guyana is a democracy”.
He mentioned, “There are millions of dollars (U.S.) pumped into the coffers to help this population, but yet again, these young men and women in wheelchairs have to pay taxi fares to get about, when the government should provide a public transportation system at a subsidized cost for them.”
The former soldier added that he travelled through Georgetown and “none of the traffic lights had anything to tell the visually impaired that it’s time to cross the street”.
“This is not good and you have legislation in place to address these needs”.
He further said that the law should have provided that every government building should have ramps for wheelchair–bound personnel and equipping their doors with Braille. “Every private industry should be required to build access ramps so that people in wheelchair are allowed to go shopping in supermarkets so that they do not have to send someone to do the errands for them because the goal is independent living for this population, not dependency…that’s unfair to them.”
He stated that he took the City University of New York (CUNY) to court because they did not have Braille in school for his now deceased mother, and for the visually impaired to read to attend classes.
“And they were quick to admit that they were at fault and fixed it.”

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Government not doing enough for disabled persons – says advocate

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