A Church of Christ Pastor has called on employers to offer job opportunities to Persons Living With Disabilities (hearing impaired) within the country because such persons are also capable of carrying out duties assigned them satisfactorily.
According to the pastor of the Nsawam road branch of the church, Pastor Sam Williams, some researches had proven that deaf people who had been fortunate enough to gain employment were excelling in their various fields, with some doing better than their hearing colleagues.
He made the call at the opening of the Deaf Week Celebration of the church held on Sunday on the theme “Promoting Occupational Adequacy for Persons Living with Disability.”
He said “Everyone in this world is very important because we are all creatures of the almighty. Let us stop the discrimination against the deaf and PWDs in general, because these individuals are differently able. They deserve love and all the good things that we all desire.”
Touching on the need for society to promote inclusiveness when it comes to dealing with PWDs, he underscored the need for parents of PWDs to desist from “hiding” their wards because of misconceptions surrounding PWDs in many parts of the country.
He stated that seeing PWDs as cursed persons must stop, as a matter of urgency, so that parents could confidently bring out their disabled wards to mingle with other children or families.
Especially in the some rural parts of the country, Pastor Williams observed that many pregnant women feared mingling with parents of special needs children due to the belief that disability was a “contagious curse.”
He, therefore, called on all religious bodies to rise up and educate their members and followers on the need to stop discrimination against PWDs.
Pastor Williams was of the conviction that if such individuals were generally accepted in all spheres of life, gaining employment would not be a problem for them.
In his submission, a sign language interpreter of the church, Mr Tony Manu, commended various organisations who had already given deaf persons the chance to prove themselves as reliable employees, saying the move must encourage other institutions to follow suit.
He stated that many deaf individuals had proven to be very productive at their workplaces, contributing significantly to the companies where they worked.
There was an exhibition of different kinds of products and items produced by some self-employed deaf persons in the church after the service.
Some of the manufactured merchandise displayed for sale included, detergents, jewelry and African clothing.
Other hearing impaired persons also exhibited their skills in make-up artistry during the exhibition.
BY RAISSA SAMBOU
