Pulse.ng : Sightsavers trains female students with disabilities on skills in Kaduna

By Sani Idris

Sightsavers, an international charity working in preventing avoidable blindness, supporting equality for people with disabilities and advocating change, has trained school girls living with disabilities on various skills in Kaduna.

The school girls, numbered 15, were drawn from Government Schools in Kaduna and trained on fashion design, soap making and knitting, among others.

The training was organised in partnership with the Kaduna Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), while the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) provided the platform for the training intervention.

Speaking to newsmen on the sidelines of an exhibition of the produced items on Thursday in Kaduna, Anita Gwom, the Senior Programme Manager of Sightsavers in the state, said the aim was to ensure People With Disabilities (PWDs) fit into skills sectors in the society.

She said that on the premise, Sightsavers inclusive eye care programme, was introduced to take everybody along including those without disabilities.

“Whenever there is an ongoing service delivery, the persons without disabilities quickly and easily get involved, so we intensionally call the programme ‘inclusive’ so that we target PWDs to be easily carried along,”she said.

Gwom added that Sightsavers donor, Spectrum, that was also interested in PWDs, brought the idea of shifting the support from eye health to empowering the school girls with skills.

She added that when the girls grow older, the skills would help them blend and economically strive in the society.

“Odinarily, women have challenges, talk more of having disability and being a female and a child, the condition will be worse.

“The skills empowerment will help them address the challenges and ensure self-reliance when they grown older,” she added.

Also, Mr Kabir Lawal, SUBEB’s acting Deputy Director, Social Mobilisation Department, said the NGO enhanced teaching and learning in Kaduna schools.

He explained that through Sightsavers eye health programme, they trained teachers in Kaduna on how to screen students’ eyes on possible eye health issues so as to be treated or referred for medication to enable them read and write.

Lawal, therefore, said that the skills empowerment by Sightsavers was in line with SUBEB’s passion on encouraging skills acquisition in schools.

“Even in our conventional schools, we have an arts teachers who solely teach some hand skills like tailoring, dyeing and painting, among others,” he said.

Lawal thanked Sightsavers for the gesture and support to educational sector in the state, adding that their activities have enhanced learning in the state’s basic schools.

Also, Dr Jamilu Haruna, Parmanent Member, School Management, SUBEB, restated the importance of skills especially to girls and most importantly those with disabilities.

He said that with the skills empowerment, in the future, the girls would not depend on men or their parents for sustainanace but rather support their households and societies.

Haruna, who is a medical Doctor, urged Sightsavers to expand its activities on sight from cataract and refractive errors to other issues related to eye problems.

“Some children were born blind due to their mothers consumption of some substances that affected their pregnancy, such issues among others that cause sight problems especially in children need to be addressed,”he said.

On his part, Mr Garba Hassan, Area Manager of ITF in Kaduna, said that training for skills acquisition was one of their primary responsibilities.

He said they trained the physcially-challenged girls in line with their three training objectives, which included ensuring that they have passion for whatever skills they acquired so they would make it a profession.

“Anybody who produces goods or render services, will definitely have monetary gain to rely on, therefore, the girls will no doubt see increase in their economic status and be self-reliant,” Hassan said.

He urged the public to patronise locally made products especially from such categories of people so as to build a resilient economy.

Speaking on behalf of the children, Mr Garba Abdullahi, the Secretary of Joint National Association of Persons With Disabilities (JONAPWD), said empowering the disabled girls was in line with their association’s mandate.

He said tjat such training which the association had been advocating would help in their age-long call for the realisation of an end to street begging.

Abdullahi called for the speedy passage of the bill for PWDs in Kaduna State and at the national level, adding that, it would address their major problems.

He thanked the organisers of the programme, while calling on wealthy individuals or organisations to emulate the gesture for the betterment of PWDs and humanity at large.(NAN)(www.nannewa.ng)