Story: Donald Ato Dapatem
A large number of People with Disability (PWD), most of them wearing Convention People’s Party (CPP) T-shirts and holding flags, yesterday gathered at the Coconut Groove Hotel in Accra for the launch of the first-ever braille version of a political party manifesto, pioneered by the CPP.
Although the PWDs fell short of singing CPP songs, their show of support and appreciation contained in speeches by their various leaders as well as catcalls by the ordinary members were indicative of their admiration for the honour done them by the CPP.
Some of the catcalls were “Edwumawura”, “CPP you are always the first”, “You think about us”, “We are grateful”.
Made up of the blind, the crippled and the deaf, the large gathering danced and sung to tunes provided by the Golden Sparrows Band , made up of blind bandsmen and women.
All the four speakers at the function, each of whom had a disability, expressed their gratitude to the CPP for being the first political party to achieve such a feat.
To set the tone was the General Secretary of the CPP, Mr Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, who is crippled, saying “as a disabled person myself, I appreciate and understand the problems of people with disability”.
He expressed worry that although statistics indicated that 10 per cent of the population was disabled, successive governments had failed undertake any concrete steps to better the lot of people with disability.
He said the PCP would dialogue with the PWDs, assist them with opportunity to attain their potential to contribute their quota to national development rather than abandoning them as if “they were a burden to society”.
The next speaker was the President of the Ghana Association for the Blind (GAB), Mr Yaw Ofori Debrah, who described the launching of the braille as a show of the visionary leadership that the CPP had had since independence.
According to him, apart from the support that Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President offered the people with disability during his time, his wife, a former First Lady, Madam Fathia Nkrumah, took up the position of a matron at the Akropong School for the Blind, a position which offered her a first hand view of the problems facing people with disability.
He said although other political parties had been meeting with other identifiable groups, they had not even found it fit to either meet them or take concrete steps to assist them.
“Our message to you, Dr Nduom, is that if Ghanaians vote for you as our president, we don’t want only to be served, but we want the opportunity to serve Ghanaians because we have qualified people among us who can serve as ministers of state, district chief executives, members of boards, among others”.
The President of the Association for the Deaf, Mr K. Asare, said although the Constitution conferred voting rights on all Ghanaians above 18 years, people with hearing impairment had in some cases ben deprived of such rights because the information put out about the electoral process were difficult for them to access.
Mr Joseph Adu Boapong, the President for the Ghana Society for the People with Disability (GSPD), commended the CPP for recognising people with disability even before they came to power by giving people who were hearing impaired the opportunity to participate in the political debate.
Dr Nduom for his part said the launching of the braille version of the CPP manifesto was to offer people with hearing impairment the chance to know and understand what the CPP was offering and also make commitment to take every step possible to ensure that that all national events could reach the deaf through sign language.
He also promised that a CPP government would ensure easy access to all public buildings and places, and as a first step, he stated that as the owner, he had ordered the Management of the Coconut Groove Hotel to ensure that within the next six months the hotel became accessible to people with disability.
Dr Nduom in a significant gesture presented the braille version of the CPP manifesto and the ten point agenda to the association.
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