COVID-19: Voice Ghana receives support from Disability Rights Fund

Accra, Oct. 7, GNA – The Disability Rights Fund, a grant making organisation in the USA, has supported Voice Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organisation, with a US$20,000 grant to implement a project on the welfare of persons with disability in Ghana.

The one-year project will engage the Government for a well-planned welfare scheme for persons with disability (PWDs) in the country’s COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan.

This was in a statement signed by Mr Francis Asong, the Executive Director of Voice Ghana, an NGO managed for and by PWDs and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.

As part of the project, a policy brief will be developed to the National Disaster Management Organisation Governing Council for consideration in mainstreaming the needs and concerns of PWDs in all humanitarian activities in the country.

The project will engage the district assemblies in the Volta and Oti regions to include the needs of persons with disability in their respective COVID-19 response plans.

The project will also support the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations in its advocacy for the re-activation of the development of a communication strategy by the Gender Ministry to help eliminating stigma and discrimination against PWDs in Ghana, the statement said.

It said the project was expected to impact positively in the lives of all categories of persons with disability.

Ghana made seven key commitments at the Global Disability Summit in 2018 to, among others, ensure that the needs and concerns of PWDs were mainstreamed in humanitarian activities of National Disaster Management.

Article 11 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, which was ratified by Ghana eight years ago, mandates her to put the necessary measures in place to ensure the protection and safety of PWDs in situations of risk, armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies and the occurrence of natural disasters.
GNA