Women And Girls With Disabilities Deserve Access To Health And Information- DWAI
The Albino Foundation Public Notice
By Oliver Nweke
The Executive Director, Deaf Women Aloud Initiative (DWAI), Helen Beyioku-Alase has called on the federal government to work on improving access to health and information for persons with disabilities and particularly Deaf women and girls.
Speaking during a one-day event organized by DWAI in Abuja, the Executive Director noted that deaf women and girls are prevented from getting access to health care services and information because of their peculiar need and use of sign language as the major means of communication.
Helen Beyioku Alase stressed the importance and need for non-sign language users to learn basic communication skill in sign language, saying “this will improve communication and accessibility for us as we make efforts to access services in all sector”
Earlier Uche Neokedi, of the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (RoLAC) pointed out that the issue of non-accessibility for deaf persons to information is due to communication barriers caused by non-availability of sign language interprets and captions.
RoLAC has been working to support the implementation of the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, by championing advocacy programmes and campaigns in states for the domestication of the Act in states.
RoLAC and DWAI have partnered in creating awareness on the Act among Deaf Women and Children, trained interpreters on disability rights and legal vocabularies in sign language.
Dr. Aisha Umar, President, Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria (MWAN) expressed the Associations’ readiness to collaborate with DWAI in ensuring accessibility to Deaf Women and girls who need health care services in Abuja.
Dr. Umar advised members to ensure they receive the best medical services in hospital in FCT, she asked persons with disabilities to regularly send feedback on service delivery to them by hospital personnel, as this will assist MWAN to improve in providing accessibility to persons with disabilities.
Dr. Grace Illori, the project Officer of DWAI, in her closing remarks appreciated stakeholders for inputs and revealed that DWAI was seeking for more partnership with stakeholders in ensuring full implementation of the disability Act towards creating enabling environment for accessibility for persons with disabilities.
