Sierra Leone News: Sightsavers Call for Disability Rights to be Upheld

By Mariama Sesay

Sightsavers Sierra Leone on Friday launched a petition calling for disability rights to be upheld by the United Nations and its member states. The organisation also called on the government of Sierra Leone to approve and implement the inclusive education policy.

Eric Musa, program officer of Sightsaver Sierra Leone, said that his organisation believes that, this is vital to ensure the equal rights of people with disabilities are respected in Sierra Leone and around the world.

He said they are calling on the government to approve and implement the Inclusive Education Policy because this will help in delivering meaningful and equal opportunity for the participation of all categories of children at different levels regardless of their different needs in school.

He noted that, it is estimated that 15 percent of the world population has some form of disability, campaign aims to change the fact that in many countries people with disabilities experience high levels of discrimination that prevent them from taking part in society.

He said their petition for disability rights has two goals — at a global level, it calls on the United Nations to make sure that it is recently publish disability strategy is implemented effectively; and at national level, they are calling on the government to approve and implement disability laws and meet the commitments they have made on disability inclusion.

He said that, the campaign is ambitious in its scale and they are working with local disability groups and individual around the world to get as many signatures as possible.

He said that at Sightsavers, they want to show the widespread support for disability right locally and internationally, adding that they want every government and the UN to know that people everywhere are no longer prepared to tolerate the right of 15 percent of the world’s population being denied.

He said as a global call to the UN, the equal world petition has specific calls to action targeting the government of Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea, India, Ireland, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda.

He said the petition signed will be collected between June to December, and handed over to the president of the UN General Assembly in New York.

According to Tiangay Gondoe, program manager at Sightsaver Sierra Leone, they have helped people with blindness and have prevented people from getting blindness, adding that they want to reduce blindness in the world.