12 Aug 2013

The Maun - based Thuso Rehabilitation Centre is to decentralise its disability services to Gumare and Seronga in the Okavango Sub-district. Speaking to different stakeholders recently in Gumare, the centre’s executive director, Mr Moses Kandovazu, encouraged them to assist in this regard so that people living with disability were serviced in the district.
He noted that Okavango was one of the districts highly challenged by disability, with 1 178 such people. Mr Kandovazu said that the challenge they faced was that a lot of people were not trained to work with people living with disabilities.
He also asked the stakeholders to help with infrastructure or buildings where such people would be assisted, appreciating that Gumare already had a place that the centre would utilise. The executive director said that in most cases, people living with disabilities were exploited by their own families.
He said if community leaders like the police were aware of such issues, they would be able to investigate and assist such people. Furthermore, he said that some even leave them home unattended to, the thing he said isolated them.
He also said that the aim of the community based rehabilitation objective was to activate communities to promote and protect human rights for the group.  
“Problems such as poor rehabilitation, unemployment, discrimination and poverty are some examples of what people with disability go through,” he said. The District Aids Coordinator (DAC), Mr Morongwa Dikgang thanked the centre for such an initiative, noting that the district had a lot of people living with disabilities. He said that it would be advisable for another centre to be set up in Shakawe to assist nearby villages. Mr Dikgang noted that Seronga clinic did not have much space and suggested that Beetsha clinic would be of great help for the initiative and hoped that the local authorities would support it. Ends