Journalism workshop on disabilities concludes
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Newmai News Network

Imphal, August 21 2014: A three day long Child Journalism workshop on Disabilities which was organized by World Vision, India concluded at Hotel Anand Continental, Imphal on Wednesday.

The valedictory programme was attended by L.Ibomcha Singh, commissioner, Persons with disabilities, L.Dhanabir Singh, psychologist, Social Welfare department, Manipur, NR Kithan, World Vision North East, programme co ordinator and also by Dennis Keishing and L.Michael, community development co ordinators, World Vision, Imphal West, ADP as chief guest, president and resource persons of the programme.

Speaking as the chief guest, L.Ibomcha told that out of the large number of disabled persons residing in the state, only 40 % are able to acquire disability certificates and the larger 60% of them are not able to obtain it.

The reason according to him is due to the shifting of the responsibility of issuing of disability certificates from the Social Welfare department to the Health Directorate, government of Manipur since February 17, 2014 .

"The slow process taken to issue disability certificates to the disabled has caused a lot of inconvenience to the particular sections of the society", Ibomcha added and said that out of the total 54,110 disabled persons in the state, only 19,000 populations have received their certificates which is rather shocking.

The commissioner further said that in order for the disabled persons in the society to achieve their goals and live at par with the other sections of the society, they need to be supported by the civil organizations, NGOs and also by their concerned parents.

"In this way, the disabled will be able to explore their talents and use them to nurture the society so that it can help develop the nation to a higher level", Ibomcha added.

Speaking on the occasion, KR Kithan told that such type of child journalism workshop is the first of its kind ever organized in the state after being held in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in the North East.

As such, the workshop was organized with the aim to discover the talents and abilities of the various disabled persons in the state in various fields and give certain platforms for them to be exposed and enlighten the other sections of the people.

A total of 15 trainees including four disabled girls took part in the workshop.

As part of the closing programme, various testimonies and experiences faced by the disabled persons in their lives were shared.

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