Persons with disabilities to receive revised policy at international day fete in Kole district
Uganda will use this year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities celebrations at Okole Primary School in Kole district to launch a revised Policy on Persons with Disabilities 2022.
The State Minister for Disability Affairs, Hellen Asamo, also told journalists at Uganda Media Centre on Tuesday that the audio-visual version of the Persons with Disabilities Act 2020 will be launched as part of the activities to celebrate the Day.
Other activities scheduled for the day include the National Disability Symposium, happening a day early – on 2nd November 2022, health camp outreaches in Kole and provision of National Special Grant for Persons with Disabilities Grants to beneficiaries in Kole district.
The health camps will cater to eye care, medical referrals, assessment for assistive devices, distribution of assistive devices and other services.
The International Day of Persons with Disabilities was first observed on 3rd December in 1992 when the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed it.
In Uganda, it is one of the advocacy activities the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development undertakes as mandated in the Constitution. It recognizes the rights of Persons with Disabilities and human dignity.
The theme of this year’s celebrations is ‘leadership and mindset change: a tool for inclusive development,’ and it aims to strengthen and amplify awareness about the abilities of PWDs and encourage leaders to support PWDs to harness their potential.
The minister quoting the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS 2016) said Uganda has a population of 6, 466, 798 PWDs which is 12.4% of the total national population. Of the 6, 466, 798 PWDs, 49.26% and 50.74% are males and females respectively.
The census estimated the highest forms of disability were difficulty seeing at 6.5%, difficulty remembering at 5.4%, difficulty walking at 4.5% and difficulty hearing at 3.1% of the population.
Previous engagements at the International Day of PWDs have born results.
At last year’s commemoration, PWDs demanded to be allocated a specific ceiling under the Parish Development Model programme and indeed they were allocated 10% of the PDM funds as affirmative action and they can access the money through their PDM SACCOs.
Also, PWDs requested an increment in the allocation for the National Special Grant for Persons with Disabilities to at least Shs17bn to cater for the 31 Local Governments that had not benefited from the grant.
The minister reports that the budget for the programme was enhanced from Shs9.6bn to Shs16.6bn in the financial year 2022/2023 and 2, 656 PWD groups will benefit thereby reaching over 16, 000 households countrywide.
