Government has launched the Disability Rights Awareness Month with a call to prioritise and protect people with disabilities when disaster strikes.
Minister of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare, Mary Navicha, launched the campaign on Tuesday at Lilongwe Girls Secondary School.
Navicha said people with disabilities are the most vulnerable when climatic shocks occur in the country due to the lack of access to early warning messages and loss of assistive devices for such people in the society.
Despite these barriers, the minister highlighted that the funding of K2 Billion Kwacha Disability Trust Fund and enrollment of people with disabilities into the social cash transfer programme by the government as some of the achievements registered.
Chairperson for Federation of Disability Organisations in Malawi (FEDOMA), Boniface Massah, said the month provides a platform for different actors to reflect challenges people with disabilities face but also showcase successes being registered.
Massah said children with disabilities are the most vulnerable groups during occurrence of natural disasters.
The Disability Rights Awareness Month will run from 3 November to 3 December this year under the theme “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) at 20: Building on Progress, Advancing the future”.
By Austin Fukula
