Deafblind persons call for NCPD’s responsibilities to tackle existing challenges

By Elias Hakizimana.

Members of the Rwanda Organization of Persons with DeafBlindness (ROPDB) has called on the National Council for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) to put in place strategies and use their responsibilities in handling problems facing these people.

The call was made on December 12, 2018 in Kigali during an extra-ordinary session where persons with deaf blindness revealed the big challenges they experience in their daily lives including poverty and loneliness.

Furaha Jean Marie Vianney, the president of ROPDB said that persons with deaf blind disabilities are still excluded out of the general society and among other persons with disabilities as they can face discrimination, insolence and deprived of labour rights because people deny them jobs.

“The most problem we experience is poverty because the community denies us jobs, they discriminate us and even our parents do so, this contributes to the stunting of our development because we cannot participate in income generating activities,”

Furaha urged parents and families to give rights to these people to explore their potentials in the community and he said that together with his colleagues who won these challenges will advocate for these persons so that they join schools to gain education.

“we are going to cater for them and hear from them, we shall visit them and know where they are, we will link them with local authorities and officials from NCPD although they also sometimes exclude us, but we hope together with development partners we will manage to help these persons learn tactile language,” Furaha noted.

The discussion session attracted different partners including Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), My Rights and Handcap International among others.

Mrs. Ruth Mbabazi, an official from Voluntary Service Overseas blamed NCPD to use their responsibilities in advocating persons with disabilities, saying that most of the times they act irresponsibly towards handling problems people with disabilities experience.

When presenting the survey report by Rwanda Governance Board (RGB), Joseph Munyangabo, an official of Rwanda Union of the Blinds (RUB) shown that among the five district covered by the survey, 87 percent of local authorities do not know about INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES’ RIGHTS.

“NCPD should stand up for this to be known by local authorities through organizing training for them to end violence against persons with disabilities,” Munyangabo noted.

Sylvie Nyirabugenimana, an official from NCPD in charge of inclusive communication reiterated that the mentioned challenges still observed and are seen among all persons with disabilities.

“We know this is not only a challenge for persons with deaf blind disability only, but among the general community of people with disabilities, these people have different problems depending on their disability category and people do not have enough knowledge on each category. Things became worse for people with deaf blindness. As NCPD, we are helping entitled authorities to execute their responsibilities through different training from the national to sectorial level,”

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