Persons With Disability Call For Awareness On Social Inclusion

By Bashir Hassan Abubakar

Bauchi State Agency for Persons With Disability (APWD) have been called upon to design advocacy programs and activities on social inclusion targeted to all the State Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and other corporate bodies.

This was one of the major recommendations by participants at the end of a three-day Disability and Social Inclusion Awareness Training Workshop organised by the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) funded Activity titled “State Accountability, Transparency, and Effectiveness (State2State), held at Command Guests House Conference Hall in Bauchi, the State Capital.

The participants also recommended that APWD should work with the Bauchi State Ministry for Budget and Economic Planning (MoBEP) towards creating a budget line item, with a view to paving way for the implementation of an all inclusive disability activities, funding and finance.

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While appreciating the Bauchi State Government for its efforts in putting the institutional structure and support to PWDs, participants also recommended that USAID State2State Activity should provide the technical support for the State Agency for Persons with Disability (APWD) to domesticate the National Policy on Disabilities inline with the State’s peculiarities.

Other recommendations made by the participants include: Training and Retraining of State MDAs on Disability Inclusion, continues Sensitization and Advocacy to policy makers on disability inclusion in programs and service delivery.

Also, based on the rich content of the training, the participants were of the view that the training should be cascaded to the local government areas of the state.

Earlier in the course of the training, the state team lead of the USAID State2State Activity Rabi Ekele informed participants that, “State2State governance reforms are intended to improve the delivery of basic services in the key sectors of Basic Education, Health Care and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH). Towards achieving the set objectives, State2State has adopted the core principles of gender and social inclusion, citizens participation in governance and conflict mitigation among others”.

Ekele said that the purpose of the training was to help participants develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to ensure activities and initiatives effectively address the needs, priorities and rights of persons with disability.

The three-day capacity training focused on 3 major modules with Module 1 exposing participants to Concept of Disability.

Module 2 of the training manual highlighted on Identification and Interaction with PWDs, while Module 3 harped on Disability Inclusion Management.

The three-day intensive training, which attracted participants from relevant State MDAs and Civil Society Organizations, was facilitated by the trio of Kusan Niyang, Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) advisor of the State2State Activity, who was the lead facilitator, she was supported by Hassana Lawal Bello, (GESI Specialist) and Abacha Kachalla , LG Manager of the USAID State2State Activity Bauchi field office.

It could be recalled that similar training was organised for CSOs, FBOs and PWDs last week, where a communique was issued at the end of the training calling for an all inclusive approach to governance in the state.

Our correspondent observed the participatory nature of the training, with participants exhibiting enthusiasm, zeal and passion on social inclusion during the training.