The Albino Foundation Public Notice
By Ruby Leo and Oliver Nweke
The Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD), Mr James Lalu has promised to make budgetary allocation in the next budget for the sustainability of a Deaf – E – 3 project meant to educate and empower the deaf community.
The pledge is coming in response to the appeal made by the Acting Mission Director of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Ms. Katie Donohoe who hoped that the Nigerian government, and private sector donor would provide funds to sustain the project when the three-year period expires.
The project is a 2-million-dollar partnership with Gallaudet University meant to allow USAID for the first time to support education opportunity for Nigerians dear, hard of hearing and deaf blind communities.
Lalu who pointed out that when the project was first conceived the commission was not yet established, but now the commission has become an adopted, a co- partner in the project.
“Our Commitment for the sustainability of the project is very important to us, when we see projects comes like this, a beautiful idea coming in, it is important for us to make sure that even after the funding ends, this project must take off and continue”
“our commitment is to see, that we partner with this project to make sure that we make budgetary allocations in the next budget to make sure that the beautiful initiative that came with this project continues for the benefit of our people in Nigeria.
His words, “because once we see projects for the benefit of persons with disabilities, it becomes our primary business. So count us partners in this project, whatever roles the commission is supposed to play be rest assured that our commitment is 100%, it is automatic”.
As a deaf person myself, I am totally committed to the success of this project and we look forward to working with the team in Nigeria to make sure this project succeeds. I am very happy with the commitment of our role model, Senator Almakura, for this project. As a senator of the federal republic of Nigeria, we know his support is very important.
Earlier the Mr Fela Bank Olemoh, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Education Interventions opined that the reality of Nigeria as a Nation is that we are not doing enough to educate our hearing impaired and all our other physically challenged population.
According to him reports have revealed that 23.7 % of Nigerians have hearing impairment, total deafness, hearing loss and other hearing total impairments.
He added that 84% of the deaf population in Nigeria remain under educated and economically disadvantaged, saying, “furthermore less than 40% of Nigerians deaf children enrolled in primary schools and even fewer are allowed to continue to secondary school education. It is evident that we are struggling to keep up with International standards. But as a nation we are committed to work hard to meet these standards, programmes like these are critical to ensuring that we keep these discussions where it should be”.
Chioma Obasi, who represented the Chairman of the board of trustee of Wesley University Ondo state, Sir Demola Aladekomo said that the university has the objective of granting access to all qualified candidate for university education irrespective of special conditions, religion, tribe and so on, its provide free access to everybody.
She added that they are committed to ensuring that the deaf, the hard of hearing, the blind individuals are not hindered by their unique circumstances from attaining the desired height in education.
Mr Haruna Tsafe the Vice President of the Nigerian National Association of the Deaf commended USAID for recognizing the project that will improve education, employment and capacity building for persons who are deaf in Nigeria.
He added that they believe and hope that at the end of this project there would be a lot of positive reflection that will benefit the members of their community.
“I commend you for allowing this happen at this particular time, and that you recognize that the international day for sign language is organized by the deaf community, he said”.
