Rwanda will on December 3, join the rest of the world to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

At national level, the event will take place in Masaka Sector, Kicukiro District.

The International Day of Persons with Disabilities will follow a week of intensive campaign where various activities aiming to defend the social welfare of people with disabilities will be conducted.

The National Council of Persons with Disabilities says that some of the outreach activities include building homes for vulnerable people with disabilities as well as distribution of domestic animals.

The week-long awareness campaign started today and ends on December 2.

It kicked off with the official launch of a technology centre for people with disabilities. The centre aims to provide computers and other tech machines for the disabled to solve their problems.

Ahead of the official launch for the activities yesterday, private firms, public institutions and nongovernmental organisations met to discuss the prevailing challenges, including unemployment, among people with disabilities.

From November 28-30, there are planned inspections in schools to ascertain whether they have sufficient infrastructure to facilitate children with disabilities learn in their respective communities.

In addition, various sports games have been planned as well as joining the rest of the world to observe the World AIDS Day on December 1.

Emmanuel Ndayisaba, the Executive Secretary of NCPD, told The New Times that there’s much to celebrate in terms of rights of persons with disabilities.

A few years ago, he said, observing the rights of people with disability was like a favour and mostly done by religious groups.

But Rwanda has now signed and ratified the International Convention of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) while ministerial orders have been put in place in favour of PWDs.

"This was a big change with a big impact. It meant that the rights of PWDs was no longer a favour but an obligation. Now we follow the implementation of the law and those who don’t do it are against it. If you find disability friendly infrastructure being built, it is not a favour. It is in the laws and those who don’t observe them can be punished accordingly,” he said.

Educators irked

Ndayisaba acknowledged that while a lot had been done to facilitate children with disability to pursue their studies like able-bodied children a lot still needs to be done.

"We have many of them who managed to complete their university studies. We have visually impaired doctors, which was not the case before and we are still making more effort to facilitate many to study,” he said.

NCPD has an agreement with the Higher Education Council that students with disabilities who pass with good marks in the national examinations will be given free access to education.

As time goes on, schools and universities understand the need to have special equipment for students with disabilities, especially resource rooms, he said.

NCPD is also pushing for a move that will see the students given free laptops in order to facilitate their studies.

"We are engaging with Positivo, so they can make smart machines which can be used even by visually impaired students,” he said.

Employment

Only 1.2 per cent of PWD are employed, according to official figures.

"We are working together with the MIFOTRA (Ministry of Public Service and labour) to include in a new employment policy, something which should help people with disabilities get employed. It may be a quota system which requires institutions to reserve a certain percentage (of jobs) for PWDs,” Ndayisaba said.

If companies refuse to adopt the system, they pay fines which got to a fund to help PWD create jobs, he added.

Challenges

He cited the sigma towards PWDs, schools which are still inaccessible to children with disabilities, and lack of teachers with special needs skills as some of the key challenges against PWD development.

A new department at University of Rwanda’s College of Education has been established in order to train teachers with special needs skills.

"We call on Rwandans to join PWDs to celebrate their day. People with Disabilities need your help and support,” he said.

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