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By Elvis Dumba
Banket – Representatives of people with disabilities have called upon various stakeholders to make considerations of this special group in service delivery provision.
The call was made by Kind Matope, the chairperson of the National Council for Disabled People of Zimbabwe, for the Banket District Chapter.
Matope made the call during the council’s annual general meeting, where he also took a swipe at political leaders who only surface when seeking votes.
“We appeal to service providers to consider our plight as people with disabilities in their programming so that our needs are also catered for as we can not continue living a life of continuously begging for various services. We are faced with a myriad of problems that include accommodation challenges, lack of employment opportunities, and general discrimination in many programs. In the political space, special groups such as women and youths have been allocated several seats but no one is considering people with disabilities,” he said.
Matope said, “Usually, political leaders make excuses when requested to attend our meetings so that they can hear and appreciate the challenges we face, but when it comes to elections time, they will be on the front line searching for our constituency as they understand there is no vote which is disabled but they neglect us when we want to raise our issues,” he said.
Matope said people with disabilities want to be empowered to allow them to fend for themselves and their families through various initiatives and employment opportunities.
“We are a people who can work as well as some of us are skilled in various areas but we are not seen when there are opportunities for employment. We are made to go through the same process just as everyone else. We face challenges in accessing public and private institutions as some of them are not easily accessible to people with disabilities. We appeal that during program planning, stakeholders take notice of us as well as during constructing of buildings so we can easily make access,” he said.
Frank Chimbwanda urged service providers such as local authorities to create a special desk for people with disabilities who will look at the plight of the sector.
“Our councils and other service providers should make a system for creating a special desk for PWDs so they can effectively serve the sector. For example, we also require housing provisions, but due to various challenges we face as PWDs, we cannot afford to pay for these in the same way everyone does. We have seen other people groups such as women and youth getting special allocations in provisions such as land allocations and we appeal as people with disabilities that we also get similar provisions, ” he said.
Zvimba District Ward 23 Councilor, Richard Muganhiri, said that as the locals, they will find ways to ensure that PWD’S concerns are taken on board by the council.
“As one of the policymakers in the local authority, I will strive that during our meetings, we also look at some of the concerns that you have raised, and it’s important that we continue engaging each other and find how we can help each other. and you have highlighted some of the things we took for granted for example during the Presidential agriculture inputs distribution we were not considering that some of you cannot stand waiting for a long time something which we are going to improve this year ” he said
A national congress for people living with disabilities is slated for Gweru in the month of May, where people living with disabilities are expected to map various programs that address various challenges they face.