Training program for disabled people in Bangladesh gets underway

From The Daily Star in Bangladesh:

The government has, for the first time ever, launched a five-year programme involving Tk 155 crore to train and rehabilitate the disabled in the country.

This programme, funded by World Bank, has been effective from January 28 this year after the agreement with the bank was signed on December 28 last year.

It will be implemented in collaboration with different Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) at field level across the country by April 28.

Under this programme, titled 'Promotion of Services and Opportunities to the Disabled Persons of Bangladesh', the government aims to treat disability as a development issue, raise awareness about it among policymakers and legislators and make existing laws and policies friendly to Persons with Disability (PWD).

This programme would also provide services to PWDs, especially rehabilitation to disabled women, and education for them.

According to World Health Organisation, about 1.5 crore or 10 percent of the total population is disabled in Bangladesh. Of them, more than seven percent are physically disabled and the remaining intellectually challenged.

“The government is trying to rehabilitate PWDs with trainings, assistance and development programmes through the National Foundation for Development of Disabled Persons (NFDDP),” Social Welfare Ministry Secretary Begum Kamrunnessa Khanam said.

Earlier in 2001, the government okayed an act titled Bangladesh Disability Welfare Act. Experts, however, argued that the act is sketchy and also does not give any specific directions about utilising people with disabilities as a positive human resource power.

An amendment to the act, to address its shortcomings, was to be approved in December 2007 but has not been done till date. There are also no moves at the national level to develop this vast human resource of the country with proper training.

As the nation observes National Disability Day today, many disabled people express their fears and uncertainty about their future in a country, which largely ignores their plight.

Nazia is one such person.

A masters student of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University (DU), Nazia is not sure whether she will be able to secure a job after she graduates, given that she is visually impaired.

She already had to face many hurdles to come this far in life. Statistics show that only one in 100 persons with a disability in our country get a chance for higher education.

“Those of us with disabilities somehow cope through life. But I am still uncertain about my own future. Unlike normal students, I don't know if I can secure a job even after acquiring a post-graduate degree,” Nazia said.

Nazia is one of 41 students at DU who suffer from visual impairment. Another 20 are physically challenged.

Mujibur Rahman, DU's welfare officer for the disabled, told The Daily Star most students with disabilities who have graduated from DU remain unemployed. He cites himself as an example of a person who is visually impaired and has no problems carrying out a proper job.

“The situation could be improved if the government took initiatives to recruit these unemployed people to the vacant posts in schools for the visually impaired across the country,” he suggested.

Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) working with PWDs say that the government does not seem concerned enough about rehabilitating the disabled.

Those intellectually challenged can be converted to skilled human resources if their problems are identified and they are trained accordingly. Disabilities can be categorised into four main levels: mild, moderate, severe and profound. People with mild to moderate types of intellectual disability can easily be trained to a certain level to do specified jobs, experts point out.

Society for the Welfare of the Intellectually Disabled (SWID), Bangladesh President Sajeda Humayun Kabir told The Daily Star, “The focus must be on identifying the level of one's disability and train them, in order to bring them out to the mainstream.”

Suman, 26, suffers from severe intellectual disability. He works at Reneta Ltd, a pharmaceuticals company, sticking labels on products. He went to a SWID school and was given proper training to enable him to earn his own living, and he is doing fine now.

Around 20 students from SWID schools are at present working at different organisations and are self-reliant. Many have been working for the past seven to eight years and are doing well. The figure is negligible considering that the school has 7500 students across the country.

Still this demonstrates the possibilities of proper rehabilitation.