KARACHI: NOWPDP hosted a panel discussion called “Leaving No One Behind – Working Together to Accelerate Action on Accessibility” to discuss viable ways to curb inaccessibility so that persons with disabilities can move beyond this basic hindrance and flourish.
Persons with disabilities, corporate organizations and media personnel attended this highly anticipated panel to voice their own lived experiences and solutions to this massive issue in Pakistan.
The panel was made fully accessible with assistive devices and sign language interpreters.
Also attending and speaking on the panel were Sadiq Memon Special Assistant to the CM on Disability Affairs, Sindh, Irfan Salam Mirwani District Commissioner Malir, Farhat Rasheed Director DALDA Foods and Westbury Group of Industries, and, Adnan Ahmad Trainer and Specialist of Visual Studies at NOWPDP.
Panels such as these are significant in sparking and steering conversations towards making proper policies on a national and provincial level as well as inclusive programmes on an organisational level to bolster persons with disabilities in becoming independent.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 15% of any country’s population comprises persons with disabilities, making that of Pakistan’s around 31 million. For them, accessibility is imperative to experience the full range of human rights, and increase their participation across social, economic and political life.
President NOWPDP, Amin Hashwani said, “Accessibility is a basic right for all persons with disabilities and we have been working for 14 years to bring about pragmatic ways through which we can ensure this happens; be it through the sensitization and infrastructural guidance to organizations or provision of assistive devices to persons with disabilities. We hope that more awareness comes out of such important panels.”
Sadiq Memon stated that Centers of Excellence that focus on economic empowerment and accessibility like NOWPDP’s Moriro Markaz are to be created in more districts soon. He said, “NOWPDP’s model of Moriro Markaz is an epitome of quality that should be used as a standard for Special Education in all over Sindh.”
Farhat Rasheed also shared her lived experiences and said, “There really need to be proper measures for accessibility and its implementation for all kinds of disabilities. There should actually be penalties for all public spaces and buildings that do not have accessible measures for functioning and movement.”
DC Irfan Salam said, “We really need to work on more public- private partnerships to ensure accessibility becomes a basic facet of functioning for everybody.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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