27 Nov 2018

The empowerment of People Living with Disabilities (PLWDs) is crucial to the advancement of their welfare, Kgosi Mosadi Seboko of Balete has said.

Speaking in Ramotswa during the South East District PLWDs commemoration day recently, Kgosi Mosadi said they should be empowered and embraced by society to enable them to live better as part of their communities.

She said the constitution of Botswana considered all people equal, including PLWDs, hence the need for efforts to be made to ensure they too benefitted from existing programmes.

“We are all equal before the constitution of this country,” said Kgosi Mosadi adding that PLWDs had every right to live a dignified life and be supported to live like others despite their conditions.

She further called on PLWDs to show commitment and zeal to prosper adding that they should not allow their conditions to ruin their prospects of succeeding.

Kgosi Mosadi stressed that no one had the right to discriminate against people living with disabilities and expressed regret that such discrimination still existed.

She stated that there was still need for society to be schooled on living and embracing PLWDs and further called for the learning of sign language as a way of accepting them.

South East District Disability Sports Association secretary, Ms Tidimalo Monggage said PLWDs were still subjected to discrimination.

Often, she said, people looked at their disability and concluded that they were not employable and even disqualified them from certain programmes.

Ms Monggage said this rendered them helpless and subjected them to poverty adding that most PLWDs were unemployed despite many of them being skilled.

South East District Health Management Team official, Ms Monica Dikhupe said the day was meant to strengthen efforts of empowering PLWDs as well as to call for their inclusion in the society and that they enjoy equal treatment.

It was also aimed at raising awareness on the needs of PLWDs and device strategies on how they could be included in decision making and be economically empowered, she said. ENDS