Executive Director of The Dominica Association of Persons with Disabilities (DAPD), Nathalie Murphy, believes that Dominica needs a Dominican with Disability Act to further assist persons with disabilities.
She made that announcement while delivering remarks during the official launching ceremony of the DAPD 2020/2024 Strategic, Social and Personal Development Programme held this week.
According to Murphy, a more direct effort is being made to include persons with disabilities in the social development strata. She said apart from the government, there are other organizations such as the Achievement Learning Centre and the Dominica Council on Aging that are working with the DAPD.
“So generally, something is happening but I think it has to be more structured,” Murphy said.”We need to have something legislated and one of the areas we are looking forward to eventually, is that the necessary legislation will be enacted to ensure that the implementation of the Convention [Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities] is really what it’s supposed to be.”
She continued, “I believe what we would like to have is a Dominican with Disability Act and eventually a national disability commission.”
Meantime, Murphy revealed that part of the plan will place focus on Information, Communication and Technology (ICT).
“We have been hearing in recent times of the digital economy and we want persons with disabilities to get on board,” she stated.
According to Murphy, other areas the DAPD will focus on are public education, awareness-raising and advocacy and the observance of the various days designated by the United Nations (UN).
Most important she said, will be the observance of International Day of Persons with Disabilities and the DAPD, according to her, will be targeting not only persons with disabilities but the general public.
“We are going to have media programmes. We want to go to schools; we want to go to churches. We want to go to meet with the various organizations because we’ve considered that implementation of the Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is not only government’s responsibility but it’s the responsibility for the entire country to own it and to ensure that provisions are made for persons with disability in all spheres of development,” the DAPD official stated.
At that ceremony the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC) handed over ICT equipment to the DAPD to further assist in that regard.
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