Division Within GSPD Causing Harm

MANY divisions and groups within the Ghana Society for Peoples with Disabilities (GSPD), is doing the society more harm than good.

Programmes and proposals presented by the different groups within the society are scrutinised with suspicion anytime they want help from the district assemblies thereby delaying assistance.

Emmanuel Asante Boateng, chairman of the society disclosed this to the Times in an interview, calling on his colleagues in the country to unite to enable their voices to be heard in society.

This was at the recent donation of rubber cutting machines to the Ghana Federation of the Disabled at Koforidua.

Mr Boateng noted that the Federation for the Disabled is the mother society and all the rest were created out of it but because they all have different agendas from that of the mother club/association, any time they meet there is a problem.

He appealed to all the various groups to come together as one people and join the main disabled association which is the Federation of the Disabled to enable them present one common front to fight for what is due them in the society.

"We are being cheated too much but we are all part of the nation", he said.

Mr Boateng also said some people are taking the advantage of the vulnerability of the disabled to form other associations to solicit funds on behalf of the disabled.

He appealed to the society to be careful of such unscrupulous people.

The chairman for the National Bureau for Students with Disabilities Mr George Sarpong also said that their focus was mainly on students with disabilities.

He said that the NBSD's main aim was to look for scholarships for students with disabilities in the tertiary, senior high, junior high and the basic schools in the Eastern Region.

He said that the group also seeks medical care and assistance for disability and trained some on batik tie and dye.

Mr Sarpong said that because they are not under the Federation of the Disabled People, the batik tie and dye project which was established for them by the New Juaben Municipal Assembly with support from some British NGOS is at the verge of collapse.

"We are not able to solicit funds to support the project because we are disintegrated."

He also appealed to all the physically disabled persons in the country to come under one umbrella to enable them do something meaningful for the development of the nation.