Guest Speaker Diethono Nakhro and others during the PwDs awareness programme for the students and mentors organised by the Livingstone Foundation Society at Livingstone Foundation International, Dimapur in collaboration with the Office of the State Commissioner for Persons with Disability on May 24. (Photo Courtesy: LFS)
Dimapur, May 24 (MExN): Young PwDs do not have ample access to proper education due to lack of facilities including lack of special educators in the schools meant for normal students, State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs), Diethono Nakhro maintained on May 24.
On the challenges and barriers faced by PwDs, she noted that it was not only the presence of physical barriers like lack of ramps and lifts for disabled people, but even non-physical barriers such as inaccessible communication systems lead to innumerable challenges for them.
Addressing a PwDs awareness programme for the students and mentors organised by Livingstone Foundation Society (LFS) at Livingstone Foundation International on May 24, Nakhro also highlighted various aspects of disability and its day-to-day challenges that PwDs, especially the young ones, face.
These included locomotor disability, visual impairment, hearing impairment and speech impairment; Intellectual and Developmental Disability or IDD which includes mental retardation and other mental and behavioural disabilities.
According to her, many people are less concerned about PwDs around them and merely see them as “charity objects but are not aware that disabled people also need equitable rights like normal people do.”
Nakhro, however, encouraged PwDs to be “positive and think not lesser than others though they may be different,” a press release from the foundation informed.
Under the theme, ‘Different But Not Less,’ the programme was organised in collaboration with the Office of the State Commissioner for Persons with Disability, Department of Social Welfare, Government of Nagaland.
Earlier, Ani Yepthomi, the Secretary of LFS and Director, LFI welcomed the gathering and noted that the objective of the initiative was to create transformation in not only the education set-up but also in the wider perspective of the society.
Calling for focussing on strength, not weaknesses, she stated that PwDs “do not only need the society’s sympathy or pity but also its acceptance and attention,” the release added.
