TODAY we are looking at the best practices of promoting sustainable rehabilitation for persons with disabilities through creation of employment and ensuring that they have access to education.
Most African countries take a trial and error approach to this matter and as a result, persons with disabilities are left out.
Africa must learn from American approach to disability who has believed that for disability programmes to work well, it must start with the Preident.
American President Barack Obama is committed to expanding access to employment for people with disabilities by ensuring that his administration hires people with disabilities; enforces existing laws; provides technical assistance and information on reasonable accommodations.
The system also removes barriers to work, identifies and removes barriers to employment encountered by people with public benefits.
To ensure that the vision for the disabled is fulfilled, President Obama issued an Executive Order to make the federal government a model employer of persons with disabilities.
The Order requires agencies to create hiring plans and holds agencies accountable for their hiring practices as a result the following department responded as follow;
The Department of Labor and the Department of Defense made available the 2011 Workforce Recruitment Program Database to help college students and recent graduates with disabilities find jobs in the public and private sectors.
The US Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) launched a new initiative, designed to identify and develop strategies to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities within small businesses owned and operated by minorities.
In February 2009, for the first time, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting the employment situation for people with disabilities.
The Administration hosted a Disability Job Fairto bring qualified candidates with disabilities and agencies together to help increase federal employment for people with disabilities in the federal government.
The Office of Personnel Management created a series of quick training videos to encourage the use of Schedule A for disability hiring in the federal government.
The President issued a memorandum supporting the Randolph-Sheppard Vending Facility Program, which requires qualified blind individuals be given a priority to operate vending facilities on Federal properties. The program provides high-quality entrepreneurial opportunities for blind business managers, who, in turn, have hired thousands of workers.
The Department of Labor proposed a new rule to strengthen requirements established in Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act that would require federal contractors and subcontractors to set a hiring goal of having 7 percent of their workforces be people with disabilities. The proposed regulatory changes detail specific actions contractors must take in the areas of recruitment, training, record keeping and policy dissemination — similar to those that have long been required to promote workplace equality for women and minorities.
On expand educational opportunity; President Obama supports improved educational opportunities for people with disabilities.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization proposal will increase support for the inclusion and improved outcomes of students with disabilities, ensuring that teachers are prepared to meet the needs of diverse learners and that assessments more accurately and appropriately measure the performance of students with disabilities.
President Obama also supports expanded funding and increase enforcement for programs like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that ensure all Americans have access to the tools to succeed.
The US Department of Education allocated more than $19.9 million in grants to help prepare education personnel to improve services for persons with disabilities more especially children.
It is interested to know that in America, they believe that every child, regardless of class, colour, creed, or ability, deserve access to a world-class education.
But as recently as thirty-five years ago, an American child with a disability might have attended school without the interventions and accommodations necessary for their success; or been involuntarily isolated in a state-run institution; or even received no education at all.
That was wrong and America set out to right it. Today, across the United States, nearly 6.6 million students with disabilities rely on the provisions of the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to ensure that they enjoy the same educational rights as all children and African can do this if disability administration is placed in the office of the President.
As America mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of that law, they remember what it was all about Equal opportunity and Equal access.
Not dependence, but independence. They know that American education system must hold children with disabilities to the same high standards as those without disabilities, and hold them accountable for their success and their growth.
They remember that disability rights are civil rights, too – and pledge to enforce those rights in order to live up to our founding principles and ensure the promise of opportunity for all our people.
And even as America celebrate children with disabilities and their parents, teachers, advocates, and all who still strive to tear down the true barriers to success – even as they celebrate how far we they have come – they commit themselves to the ever-unfinished work of forming that more perfect union.
What are we learning for the American approach to disability as Africa, the lesson is that placing disability in the office of the President is the only answer to the current challenges most African countries are facing in providing quality service to persons with disabilities.
Secondly is that there is a need to review both disability and labours laws to ensure that the interest of persons with disabilities is taken care of and be effectively implemented by Government departments and other stakeholders.
What has come clear is that with clear laws on education, employment, health the plight of persons with disabilities will be addressed by our Governments. It’s time to reposition Africa in order to order to bring dignity to the rights of persons with disabilities God bless you until next week.
The author is a Professor for ICOF Colleges Seminary and Universities, Disability policy Analyst for SADC and Inclusive Development Advisor for Centre for Disability Development Research, Law and Policy, Johannesburg South Africa.
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