THE visually impaired community in Guyana is calling on government and other parliamentarians to create an environment that will see more opportunities for those living with the disability. The Guyana Society for the Blind (GSB) held a “Chain of Canes” activity on Friday around the Public Buildings in Georgetown, to culminate activities for Blind Awareness Month.
President of the GSB, Cecil Morris, said the aim of the activity was to increase advocacy for changes in the society that will see greater benefits coming to persons with disabilities.
According Morris, “We want people to know that we are a part of the community, we might be a minority but we are a minority that is important to the whole mill of things in Guyana, because we are part and parcel of this country, we are citizens of this country and we need to be recognized as such” Morris said.
Communications advocate for the National Commission on Disability, Ganesh Singh, said the event was to send a direct message to policymakers.
“We are advocating to the policymakers to implement the contents of the Act (disability) to enforce it, because it could be just another piece of legislation if things don’t happen to it and the lives of persons with disability would be the same, unless the policy makers are serious” Singh said. This is the second such event held by the Guyana Society for the Blind.
Guyana joined the rest of the Caribbean in observance of Blind Awareness month in May 2012, and the Guyana Association for the Blind had reiterated its call to the government for the provision of an annual subvention.
According to one of its members, Andrew Green, who was at the time attending the launching of a quiz competition to mark the month, it will greatly sustain and heighten the society’s advocacy programmes.
He had said that the society would welcome a meeting with the new president to lobby and to explain that they need the subvention to run the organisation.
Green also pointed to the need for increased dialogue with the corporate society and the media in raising widespread awareness of persons with disabilities.