The National Council of Persons living with Disabilities (NCPD) plans to evacuate all street beggars who are disabled by 2015 through initiating them in different economic activities.
The National Council of Persons living with Disabilities (NCPD) plans to evacuate all street beggars who are disabled by 2015 through initiating them in different economic activities.The Executive Secretary of NCPD, Emmanuel Ndayisaba, said the project will be executed in collaboration with Rwandan Cultural Health Centre (RCHC), the institution which embodies psychologists and counsellors.Ndayisaba explains that they chose to work with RCHC because begging sometimes may happen as a mental problem rather than poverty, certainly RCHC will help their inclusion in normal activities.The project will start with 16 districts by conducting research to get necessary information about disabled beggars, including their identification and reasons behind their choice, among others.The NCPD said that after information gathering, the beggars will be trained in different economic activities based on their wish, kind of disability and domain of interest.Meanwhile, a plan has been designed to sensitise disabled beggars to shun the deplorable habit.The officials say that some of them do not go to the streets necessarily because of poverty but instead some have made it a supplementary ‘business’ to sustain their other activities.Adolphe Uwase, an official at Gasabo district says that persons with disabilities should be enlisted to encourage their colleagues to leave the streets."If normal people sensitise disabled ones against begging, it sometimes becomes difficult because they think they do not understand their predicament, therefore not in position to lecture them on what to do. They would better understand their fellow disabled,” she said.