The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development in collaboration with Industrial Training Fund has empowered a total of Nineteen (19) trainees comprising of women and girls with disabilities as well as caregivers of children with disabilities with vocational training on skills acquisition.
This was made known by the Honourable Minister Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development Sadiya Umar Farouq at the Graduation/Closing ceremony of the skill acquisition training held at the Industrial Training Fund on Tuesday 11th October, 2022 in Abuja.
The Honourable Minister represented by the Director Special Needs Department of the Ministry, Mrs Nkechi Onwukwe, said that disability is both a human rights and development issue and global focus has been on addressing disability challenges that continually threatened human existence and attainment of meaningful development.
She stated that women and girls with disabilities suffer double burden of being women and also living with disabilities and evidence indicate that persons with disabilities and more importantly women and girls with disabilities are disproportionately affected by the ugly economic and developmental indexes.
Speaking further, the Minister said that the Ministry through the Special Needs department under the mantra that there is ability in disability and in line with the Ministry’s mandate thought it wise to organize the training with the objectives of enhancing the skill of the trainees, building their entrepreneurship skills and enhancing their employer of labour potentials.
Farouq highlighted the numerous programmes and activities aimed at ameliorating the problems facing Persons with Disabilities embarked by the Ministry through the Special Needs department to include:
-Recommendation of PWDs for employment in the public service
-Procurement and distribution of Assistive Devices
-Enactment of the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities Prohibition Act and subsequent establishment and appointment of it’s Board Members and Executive Secretary
-Formulation of policy documents amongst others.
In her Welcome address, the Training Manager, Model Skills Training Center ITF, Mrs Halima A. Rabo averred that having disability does not mean that one is not able. She admonished the graduands to persevere and expressed the believe that the graduands will always get in touch with the trainers to intimate on how they are faring as they will check on them from time to time.
The high point of the event was the unveiling of the products made by the trainees by the Training Manager, Mrs Halima A. Rabo who represented the Director General ITC Sir Joseph N. Ari KSM KSS and also the presentation of Cheque and Certificates by Representative of the Honourable Minister, the Director Special Needs Mrs Nkechi Onwukwe and the DG ITF represented by the Training Manager MSTC Halima A. Rabo.
There were goodwill messages from the representatives of Advocacy for Women with Disability who acknowledged that the training was a giant strides by the Ministry, representative of the National Commission for Person’s with Disability, representative of Coordinator for Sight savers who applauded the initiative, Area Manager FCT Social Development Secretariat, Hauwa A. Mohammed amongst others.
