The facilities for people with disability, voluntary groups and donors which have joined hands to promote people with handicaps yesterday stressed more concerted efforts to rehabilitate this segment of population through training and employment.
They said the people with disability compromises some 9.07 percent of the population while the efforts of the concerned agencies in recent years witnessed some major successes but the country still needed to go further in accommodating them in the development process.
The suggestion came as the partner agencies of Inclusive Skills Development (ISD) component of Promotion of Social and Environmental Standards in the Industry (PSES) Project held a meeting at Centre for Rehabilitation of Paralysed’s (CRP) Mirpur compound.
PSES is a joint project of governments of Bangladesh and Germany, implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
“The (partners) highlighted success factors as well as the challenges faced in the last two years in implementing the respective projects,” said a press release of GIZ after the meeting.
CRP’s founder Dr. Valerie Taylor thanked GIZ, BGMEA and International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) for their contribution in establishing the first ever “Prosthetics and Orthotics School” at CRP.
CRP’s executive director Shafiqul Islam emphasized on the follow up supports for 515 Rana Plaza victims who were trained in various trades with the support from GIZ through CRP and other partner organisations.
GIZ’s programme coordinator Magnus Schmid under MoU among GIZ, CRP and BGMEA, the first ever Prosthetics and Orthotics School in Bangladesh Health Professional Institute (BHPI) was set up in Savar.
Currently, 40 students in two batches were studying under a 3-year diploma course at the School, he added.
A H M Noman Khan, Executive Director, Centre for Disability in Development, Reaz Bin Mahmood , BGMEA Vice President, A B M Khorshed Alam, CEO of National Skills Development Council also spoke on the occasion.
