A scene after the donation
The Executive Director of Henry Djaba Foundation, Otiko Afisa Djaba, has said that about 70% of persons with physical disabilities in Ghana lack assistive technology, particularly wheelchairs to make them mobile.
According to the former Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, assistive technology enables people living with disability to live healthy, productive, independent and dignified lives.
She said it also helped them to access education, operate in the labor market and also helped to reduce the need for long-term care by caregivers.
Mr. Djaba made this known when Mrs. Fati Vondoli, the Eastern Regional Women’s Organizer of the ruling New Patriotic Party, who doubled as the Regional Coordinator of the School Feeding Program, donated 10 brands new wheelchairs and five boxes of alcohol-based hand sanitizer to the Henry Djaba Foundation on her birthday towards the foundation’s “1000 wheelchairs per region project.”
Addressing journalists after the donation, Mr. Djaba said the situation in Ghana created discrimination, exclusion, isolation and dragged persons with disabilities into poverty, thereby increasing the burden of taking care of the people with disabilities on the family, the society and individuals
She noted that Ghana had over 187,000 people with disabilities with only 30% having wheelchairs
“With the 30%, some of their wheelchairs are not working and some have spoilt beyond repairs. The remaining 70% numbering over 131,000 people need wheelchairs,” she said.
She commended Mrs. Vondoli for the wonderful support and appealed to members of the general public to also support her cause to help people with disabilities.
Mrs. Vondoli, for her part, said persons with disabilities needed support that was the reason why she decided to donate the wheelchairs to the Henry Djaba Foundation for onward distribution to physically challenged persons who needed them badly.
FROM Daniel Bampoe, Koforidua