NBU Hub Creates Livelihood for Persons with Special Needs in Asokore Mampong

EU funded Not-for-Profit Organisation; the No Business As Usual (NBU) Hub has taken on the task of finding livelihoods and empowerment for Persons with Disability and Special Needs living in the Asokore Mampong Municipality.

The Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly is dreading an explosion in the number of persons with disability and special needs in the young municipality.

According to Statistics from the Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly, the current number of PWD’s in the municipality stands at some 9,500 and it is expected to increase to about 10,672 by the year 2021.

This came to light when NBU Hub together with the Voice for the Vulnerable held a sensitization on the rights of persons with disability at Asokore Mampong.

Municipal Social Welfare Director, Ester Apraku Nyarko explained that the area has become a haven for persons with disabilities who migrate from Northern Ghana and neighbouring countries because of its predominantly Zango settlements.

She outlined: “We get a lot of migrants who usually come to reside at Aboabo, Sawaba, Ghana Legion where we have a number of beggars on the street and that is shooting up our new registrants almost every day.”

She is the more worried the situation has rendered the social welfare department unable to spread the 3% share of the District-Assemblies-Common-Fund-For-PWDs; fairly to beneficiaries.

“At Asokore Mampong we don’t get much of the common fund and our IGF from the municipality is very low and 3% of it is nothing to write home about. When you go to districts with minimal number of people with disability, the fund is way beyond what they expect but we have a high register of disability and yet our 3% is very low,” she lamented.

Spearhead for the outreach the No Business As Usual Hub has begun training some of the Persons with Disability in vocational skills, entrepreneurship and employability schemes.

Programs manager of social businesses and private partnerships at the Hub Daniel Okiti Boama told Ultimate News leaving persons with special needs on the streets only compounds the already pervasive problem of unemployment, vulnerability and poverty in the Asokore Mampong Municipality.

He told reporter Ivan Heathcote – Fumador, “This is the vision of the NBU project, seeking to bring growth and development within the Asokore Mampong Municipality and we cannot achieve this whol; holistic development without looking at the disabled and other marginalized groups in the society,”

Executive Director for Voice for the Vulnerable, Matilda Aduna expressed need for government to support efforts at projects to set up factories to be manned and run by persons with disability in the community.

“We are trying to see if the government can come to our aid to establish a factory just meant for the vulnerable and disabled. A place where we will train them in skills and employ them from the community,” she beckoned.

Some persons with disability who spoke to Ultimate News expressed concerns about their difficulty to access health care; public buildings and the inadequacy of the stipends they get from the District Assembly Common Fund.

By: Ghana/Ultimatefmonline.com/106.9FM/ Ivan Heathcote – Fumador / Richlove Acheampong

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