People With Disabilities Deserve Respect — LASODA Chief

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The General Manager, Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs (LASODA), Dr Babatunde  Awelenje, has expressed the need for Nigerians need to be properly oriented on how to deal with people living with disabilities (PWDs).

He reckons that such people are not different from able bodied people because everyone is a ‘temporary able body’. He said people tend to treat such persons with prejudice and cruelty only because they do not understand their needs.

Awelenje who said this at a three-day workshop organised by the Lagos Civil Society Disability Policy Partnership, (LCSDPP) and the National Union of Journalist, (NUJ) at the Limebrigde Hotel, Lekki, Lagos, pointed out that people living with disabilities get offended when people refer to them with derogatory phrases such as “disabled person or physically challenged”. He stated that PWDs are dynamic, complex and multi-dimensional in nature.

He wants people to change their perception that every disabled person is a beggar or in need of assistance. Comparing the way disabled persons are treated abroad, he expressed the belief that Nigerians should relate with PWDs with open minds.

The facilitator of the workshop, Dr Bukola Adebayo, who happens to be visually impaired explained that PWDs have been denied of their right to education, free movement, employment, living independently in their community, accessing information, obtaining proper health care, exercising political rights and making their own decisions.

“As a person living with disability the challenge is enormous but it is not the disability that limits you but the society,” he said.

Adebayo, a member of LSCDPP, said the body, Lagos State and SAVI intend to drive a new focus on disability through the media.

LSCDPP was established in March 2010 in Lagos State and the society intends to establish chapters in all the states.

By Segun Bisuga

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