Members of both delegation
The umbrella Organization of People with disabilities in Senegal (FSAPH in its French acronyms) has concluded a study visit to Rwanda where they exchanged knowledge and experience with their Rwandan counterparts.
A delegation led by the president of the umbrella Moussa Thiare spent a week long trip in Kigali, to understand the structural organization, the advocacy and the representation of the National Union of Persons with Disability of Rwanda(NUDOR).
“We have been here for five days to learn and to exchange with NUDOR because our organization is going through a transition from a traditional way of doing things towards a professional way of assuming responsibilities,” Moussa said at the conclusion of the trip.
“We exchanged historical background and understands that we are almost going through the same experience. However, NUDOR has more professionalism regarding fro example the setting of secretariat.”
According to this official, the visit was an important step in their transition because they learned that through their 14 years of existence, NUDOR has become a strong organization which is running a huge budget, and has experienced staff and transparent procedures, which is very important for an organization.
He said from their experience, there will be a lot of things to fix back home will include upgrading their way of doing things, from running projects to implementing programs.
“NUDOR has important policies that an organization needs to be strong,” he said.
More in this learning experience, the leader expects his organization to put in place strategies that will enable the organization to be self sustainable in terms of budget.
Persons with Disabilities represented in Office of the President
In terms of representation, both organizations had something to learn from each other.
Moussa Thiare
In Rwanda, Doctor Betty Mukarwego, the president of NUDOR said that Rwanda has put in place friendly programs and enabled the setup of institutions from national level down to cell level.
Their Senegalese counterparts have the same structure, but what they have not yet managed, is to have a national commission of people with disabilities(NCPD) and a representation at a parliament.
However, for Sengel, they also managed to have a representation at the office of the President where they have an advisor of the Head of State since 2000.
“This helps us to collect ideas and concerns of the persons with disabilities and to present them to the president for proper action,” said the Senegalese representative.
“That’s a great milestone. We think that if we had such a representation, the representative from office of the president and the member of parliament would work together to raise the voice for the people with disabilities,” said Mukarwego of NUDOR.
In terms of pending issues, both organizations believe that challenges for the people with disabilities are more or less common across Africa.
According to Mukarwego, issues in education include lack of infrastructure, teachers and tools that enable the people with disabilities to be part of the education for all drive in Rwanda.
Doctor Betty Mukarwego
In health, same challenges of accessibility and communication are recurrent.
“The person with disability is considered as not fitting the norms. You see, the society considers someone to be normal when they are capable to see with their two eyes, hear with their two ears, walk with their two legs, has not a different skin if he is supposed to be black,” said Moussa.
“This means that persons with disabilities are stigmatized, discriminated, and thus, their participation not full and effective.”
