AS the National Commission on Disability (NCD) continues its countrywide National Household Survey on Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), the exercise will commence in Region Four (Demerara/Mahaica) from today.

The field verification exercise in this region will run until June 30, NCD Advocacy and Communications Officer, Avonel Corrica, told the Guyana Chronicle on Tuesday.

During the exercise, the officers will be collecting contact information, disability type and addresses of PWDs, subsequent to which telephone contact will be made with them to determine additional information such as their needs, capacities, education, health, employment status, among other things.

“This survey is important because the NCD recognises the importance of acquiring figures of the number of PWDs in Guyana, their locations, needs and capacities, which in turn will significantly help policymakers in planning appropriate programmes to meet the needs of PWDs in Guyana,” Corrica said.

As the national focal point on all matters related to disabilities in Guyana, the NCD continues to update its database with requisite information on PWDs.

Further, key stakeholders such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, Ministry of Education, Disable People’s Organisations (DPOs), and Guyana Society for the Blind (GSB) have benefitted from data on PWDs shared by the NCD.

According to Corrica, the survey has already been completed in Regions Two, Three, Five, Six and 10. In 2016, the project was piloted in Region Six, where a total of 3,262 PWDs were recorded in that region.

Regions Five, Two, and 10 were surveyed in 2017. A total of 1,233 PWDs were recorded in Region Five; 954 in Region Two and 1,142 were identified in Region 10. Additionally, Region 10 was surveyed in 2018 and a total of 2,498 PWDs were recorded to be living in this region. To date, the NCD has a total of 10,140 PWDs registered on its database.

“The commission is, therefore, urging all PWDs, their parents or guardians to be on the lookout for their field staff during the verification exercise in Region Four. It’s important to be accounted for as a person with disability and benefit from the various services available in Guyana for PWDs,” Corrica related.

Meanwhile, Programme Coordinator of the Guyana Council of Organisations for PWDs, Ganesh Singh, told this publication last month that the verification exercise could help authorities plan better for the disability community.

“Once you know the number of persons, you can advocate and better plan. And it’s not just in planning but in service delivery both from the government’s perspective and the perspective of civil society. Government will be able to plan programmes, whether it’s building of special needs schools or implementing training programmes,” he said.