The Anambra State Disability Rights Commission will set up a disability fund.
The Chairman of the committee, Barrister Chux Ezewuzie, disclosed this during a media briefing on the outcome of the committee’s quarterly meeting held on Tuesday, July 23, 2024.
The Anambra State Disability Rights Commission was established under Section 3 of the State Disability Rights Act, 2018 as a one-stop authority for all disability services and related matters in Anambra State.
According to Ezeuzi, the committee deliberated on a range of disability issues and adopted two key action plans, namely the establishment of a Disability Fund and the appointment of Commission Liaison Officers in the 21 local government areas, 179 communities and 326 constituencies in Anambra to oversee the welfare of their constituents in the state.
Ezeuzi explained that the organisation will set up an “Access Market Pavilion” which will set up various things such as cooperatives for its members, credit facilities for entrepreneurs with disabilities, a trade fair for traders and skilled persons with disabilities, among others, to lift people with disabilities out of poverty.
He disclosed that a member of the committee, Bishop Moses Ezedebego, has been installed as the Chairman of the fundraising committee to realise the scheme for the Disability Fund as enshrined in Section 16 of the Anambra State Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2018.
He expressed gratitude to Governor Chukwuma Soludo for approving a separate budgetary line item for the committee and supplying and equipping the committee with state-of-the-art facilities.He also expressed gratitude to another member of the committee, Dr. Pat Okeke, wife of Chief Godwin Okeke, for constructing and donating two classrooms and a hostel block to the Central School, a special school for the hearing impaired, Odakpu, Onitsha.
The Anambra Disability Rights Commission chairman said its members have benefited from the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders as the commission’s Social Media Officer, Ms. Vivian Ezeon-Umeru, and the commission’s Public Relations Officer, Ms. Chidimma Anajemba, visited the United States to participate in the fellowship’s six-week leadership programme sponsored by the US government.
Lawyer Ezeuzi also expressed appreciation to the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Programme for sponsoring an accessibility audit study of ministries and agencies in Anambra state, which has now yielded positive results, making it clear that all they are doing is only to actualise Soludo’s vision for persons with disabilities in the state.