Registration for persons with disability in Ohangwena
• BY MARX ITAMALO
THE department dealing with persons living with disabilities in the Ohangwena regional council is calling on all people living with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 59 to register themselves at the offices of their regional councillors.
According to Lazarus Kalola, an official in the directorate of the Ohangwena Regional Council, statistics on the number of people living in the region who are disabled are needed for planning purposes.
“We are calling upon all residents of Ohangwena, who are between the ages of 18 and 59 to register themselves at their councilor’s offices in the constituencies in which they reside. They only have to take their ID and fill the form at the councilor’s office,” Kalola said.
According to him, the rationale behind the registration is to create a database for all the people living with different disabilities in the region, and its statistics could be used during decision-making.
“We need to have the number of all of these people and their type of disability. This will assist us greatly when we will be doing our planning. It will be to their benefit,” he noted.
Kalola stressed that when it comes to job offers, especially temporary ones, it is often a headwind to convince prospective employers to employ people with disabilities because of a lack of precise statistics on how many people possess what kind of disability and who can do what type of job.
“When an employment opportunity arises, we always want our people (With disabilities) to be also employed but we don’t even know them. We don’t know their disabilities and thus it is always a challenge to convince prospective employers. Thus, if have a database on them, it will be easy even to identify and contact them,” he stressed.
Kalola further asserted that when roads or buildings such as malls are being constructed or built in a specific area, sometimes they are belligerent to those living with disabilities because one can influence the government or developers to make them disability friendly due to the non – availability of statistics on people with disabilities in that particular area.
‘Therefore, this registration is essential, and people should go and register themselves.” Kalola indicated it is not a necessity to take those with severe disabilities to registration points but notes that relatives and guardians can bring their documents and register them. The registration will run until the last day of August 2024.