01 June, 2009

Sri Lanka: 39 Million Rupees to empower people with disabilities

Before posting this news, we will request all DPOs of Sri Lanka please monitor this project and report to disability movement worldwide about that such a huge amount is really empowering People with Disabilities in Sri Lanka? Are People with Disabilities and their organizations included in this project? We as people with disabilities have more challenges after adoption of UNCRPD. In Pakistan billionaires have been engaged in disability field, want to impose their ideas and trying to use people with disabilities as puppets and obedient slaves. We should encourage such initiatives but with vigilance. Like we are collecting proofs how these business tycoons are thinking about us and treating us. We need more unity in our ranks and be aware what is happening around us and may our movement again not been hijacked by business or medical minded people, those are whitening their black money in the name of disability. 

Global pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has committed Rs 39 million to a new project to  empower persons with disabilities in southern Sri Lanka.

The project will be planned and executed over three years by the Leonard Cheshire Disability Resource Centre (LCDRC) in partnership with GSK Pharmaceuticals Sri Lanka, the country's leading pharmaceuticals and vaccines company. This is the first project involving GSK and the Leonard Cheshire Disability Resource Centre in Sri Lanka.

The project is intended to help about 700 persons with disabilities living in the divisional secretariat of Habaraduwa in the Galle District by promoting several key aspects. These include vital health and rehabilitation programmes that meet a wide range of needs of people with disabilities to reduce the impact of disability; innovative community based services that support persons with disabilities to live inter-dependent lives with others; disabled children's right to a meaningful education; and sustainable livelihood programmes that focus on economic empowerment and self reliance.

The project also seeks to promote awareness and capacity building among rights holders and duty bearers on disability and development, and advocacy and campaigning to ensure, protect and promote the rights of persons with disabilities.

Commenting on the company's latest corporate social responsibility initiative, GSK Pharmaceuti-cals Sri Lanka Managing Director, Stuart Chapman said: "We are pleased to extend financial assistance and the equally-important moral support to efforts that seek to empower persons with disabilities in our community to live independently. GSK strongly believes that persons with disabilities also have the same rights to equal opportunities and access to be useful members of society."

"We are confident that this project will help eliminate some of the attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers to pave the way for a better quality of life with self esteem for persons with disabilities and their families," he said.

Jeevan Kodithuwakku, the Programme Director for the Leonard Cheshire Disability Resource Centre in Sri Lanka said the organisation is grateful for the support of GlaxoSmithKline for this thoughtfully-structured project at a time when many corporate entities are scaling down their commitments in the face of the global economic downturn.

He said that the vision of LCDRC is to create an inclusive, barrier free and rights -based society for persons with disability. One of the key aspects of the project will be to empower 200 young persons with disabilities, to ensure, protect and promote the rights of persons with disabilities, to lead a life of dignity through the 'Young Voices' project that seeks to open the door to tomorrow's leaders.

He explained that it had been decided to select about 700 people as beneficiaries in this project to be empowered through the widely-accepted Community-Based Rehabilitation approach (CBR) over a three year period.

According to the figures in possession of the Leonard Cheshire Disability Resource Centre, 5 to 6 per cent of the Sri Lankan population represent persons with disabilities. Only 30 per cent of children in the category receive proper education and about 60 per cent of them remain unemployed.

The Leonard Cheshire Disability Resource Centre was established in Sri Lanka in 2005 to support persons with disabilities affected by the 2004 tsunami. The Disability Resource Centres (DRCs) located in the Colombo, Trincomalee and Galle districts work in the areas of education, livelihoods, health and rehabilitation, advocacy and campaigning and support for everyday living. These DRCs act as information and resource centere and run projects in nearby communities.