National Council for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) officers in Nyamira county have been challenged to sustain milestones achieved in service delivery to the vulnerable population.
Nyamira County Commissioner (CC) Erastus Mbui commended the NCPD department for close collaboration with partners of goodwill and the county legislators to ensure promulgation of the Nyamira County Disability Act 2023.
“Many counties in Kenya cannot implement programs tailored to meet specific needs of persons with disability due to lack of approved laws for the same. They are struggling to lobby for approval of proposed laws so that a budget can be allocated for them to implement projected programs,” said Mbui.
He stated that the Nyamira County Disability Act 2023 has opened several opportunities for both the county and the national government to leverage on, while designing program proposals and processing funding and budget requests to implement development and service programs for persons with disabilities.
“We cannot afford to just stop at the launch of an Act, but move with speed and source for more partners who can assist with resources, which will come handy to execute programs geared towards helping persons with various domains of disabilities,” Mbui advised.
He highlighted that when twelve counties came for a peer to peer exchange program in June this year, it clearly indicated that Nyamira is destined for greatness on matters disability and the standard set must be maintained or at best improved in giving services to persons with disabilities.
Nyamira County Executive for gender, sports, youth and social services, Dr. Grace Nyamongo confirmed that the County has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a partner called Hope Mobility.
“This partner has agreed to give assistive devices to people in need of wheelchairs to be able to move independently with ease. We are finalizing our mapping for such people in our county, so that when they come, they will find we have already identified those targeted to benefit from the assistive devices they will donate,” Dr. Nyamongo explained.
The County Director of NCPD, Fred Obuya highlighted that the journey of making County Disability ACT 2023 was quite tasking and needed resilience and perseverance to all those who were called upon to participate, which they did wholeheartedly.
“We are optimistic that the budget, which the department of gender sports youths and Social services will allocate for persons with disabilities, will be used prudently to mainstream them in activities they are able to participate in to boost their esteem, so they feel part of the community they live in, thus cushioning them from abject suffering and stigma,” stated Obuya.
Bernard Kaiser, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Project Coordinator, which was the main supporting partner in the journey of formulation of the County Disability Act 2023 from its initial stages to its launch, acknowledged that the process was an exciting experience with several lessons drawn from the journey.
He advised that standards set should not be lowered because several other counties will be visiting to inquire and benchmark.
“I’m grateful to our Governor, Amos Nyaribo for giving us a nod to proceed with the plan of formulating the County Disability Act 2023. The County legislative team was equally very supportive and approved the disability Policy, which was later passed to become an Act that other counties are benchmarking from,” he said.
Kaiser promised to source and work closely with other partners and supporters of goodwill, so that the remaining portion of instituting the County Disability Board and operation guidelines, which will run the programs of the department are finalized.
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