Catering for the physically- challenged is a much-needed move

Dear Editor,
Guyana is indeed on a new wave in a number of areas, and the one that has given a great deal of pleasure in recent days is that some 5,000 children are each set to benefit from a “special needs” grant of $100,000.
This is awesome! For too long, this group has been left in a state of the ‘non-focused.’ What we need to realise is that this kind of action shows that Guyana is indeed a part of the real world.
I go back here to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol that was adopted on 13 December 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007. There were 82 signatories to the Convention, 44 signatories to the Optional Protocol, and one ratification of the Convention. This represented history’s highest number of signatories to a UN Convention on its opening day, so this is serious business we are talking about.
The Convention actually followed decades of work by the United Nations to change attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It soared to a new height with the movement from viewing persons with disabilities as “objects” of charity, medical treatment and social protection to viewing persons with disabilities as “subjects” with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent, as well as being active members of society.
I know that Guyana signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2010, and ratified the international treaty in 2014. So, Kudos for the nation are in order.
The word in Guyana is that, true to promise made by the current Government right after taking office, the Human Services and Social Security Ministry commenced this distribution of the Special Needs Children Fund one-off $100,000 cash grant; in which at the end some 5,000 children will benefit.
According to Human Services and Social Security Minister Dr Vindhya Persaud, the exercise was carefully orchestrated, as it was a collaborated effort with the Health Ministry and National Commission for Persons with Disabilities to formulate a bona fide list of qualified recipients.
The Minister detailed that “Each parent or guardian would be collecting $100,000 from the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security. (And that) This is a commitment because, “since I have been there, we have been working with persons within that community, and it adds on to other initiatives where, for over a year, we have been providing people with free support aids.” What this eventuates to is that the money would provide relief to parents and caregivers, enabling them to offer the best level of care to children with disabilities.
Making it a fully national plan, the hinterland communities have been catered for, as indeed the Minister clarified when questioned. She expressed, “We are, as much as possible, going to the closest locations where persons have applied… In the cases where it is very remote, we will have people going into those areas directly, like the riverine communities. All of that (has) been put into place, that is why it is a long process. We’re trying to make it as easy as possible.”
The issue that comes to mind, even as I am happy for what is happening, is that all Guyana must move beyond and deeper when it comes to this group. There are many challenges that disabled people have to live with when employed, and even as they seek employment, they are confronted with issues regarding doubt of ability; lack of education; poverty; stigmatisation; transport and accommodation facilities; negative attitudes; and infrastructure, among other things.
What we need to do in lending support to the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security is simply remember that disabled people are a visible minority group that is starved of services and mostly ignored by society. They tend to live in isolation, and depend on charity, and even pity. Their disability is wide-ranging, and may include one or more of the following: blindness, low vision, leprosy-cured, hearing impairment, loco motor disability, mental retardation and mental illness. These people are fully human, but because of the culture of discrimination, they choose many times not to go to public places, and are not free to get the constitutional rights which a non-disabled person gets.
My sincere hope is that, with this exercise, we would all help Minister Vindhya Persaud bring to pass the realisation of: access to information; access to transport; access to buildings; and access to medicare for our disabled people.

Yours truly,
H Singh