By Tenson Zobo
Senior Deputy Secretary in the Department of Disability and Elderly Affairs, Issac Katopola has said people with disabilities in the country needs human and material resource to improving delivery of services in the country.
The revelations were made during official opening of a dissemination workshop of the work plan for children with disabilities on Thursday in Lilongwe. The workshop aimed at improving the livelihoods of persons with disability.
“The health disability sector in the country is weak and it needs a lot of support in areas of human as well as the material resource to deliver services. Studies and experience have shown that children with disabilities are among the worst marginalized category of children in the country”, said Katopola.
He further urged District Councils (DCs) and general public to improve situation of over a quarter of a million disability children so as to help develop national development by facilitating trainings since teachers are not well trained to enable them teach children with disabilities.
“We will not be able to achieve national and global development plans, goals and strategies if some sections of our population are still left out in our respective programs and let alone national development programs. Thus, involvement of DCs helps to reduce increasing cases of human trafficking and malpractice that arise”, lamented Katopola.
Executive Director of Malawi council for the Handicapped (MACOHA), Peter Ngoma concurred with Katopola saying that disseminating the work plan for children with disabilities in Malawi is of chief importance as it discusses issues of access to Early Child hood development and education for Malawi. For instance, caregiver lack knowledge and practical skills to teach children with disabilities hence Malawi remain behind in addressing the issue.
“High quality and timely information is critical for evidence informed decision making, planning and implementation of disability health policy, resource mobilization in general and effective response to challenges affecting people with disabilities such as poorly school resourcing which do not accommodate the children with disabilities. One but not least, disease outbreaks in particular are among the limiting factors”, said Ngomwa.
The disability campaign will reach its equilibrium point on 3rd December 2015 in Mzuzu Upper Stadium where different activities will be showcased.
