THE physically challenged fraternity has always reminded able-bodied persons to focus on ability rather than disability when weighting everybody’s contribution in society.
It is true that a section of the physically challenged does not want to work but resorts to begging along the streets in the major cities and urban centres of the country.
The irony of the situation is that many of the people begging along the streets and at vantage points have received training in different kinds of vocations in order to make them more productive. Some of those training programmes were organised at a cost to the taxpayer.
The business of begging appears to be thriving because of the attitude of the Ghanaian towards the so-called vulnerable in society. For religious reasons, both Christians and Muslims are enjoined to give alms, while majority of members of society believe that we should be one another’s keeper.
However, the same religious teachings remind the faithful about the importance of work in our everyday lives. Indeed, the Bible puts it very succinctly, “He who does not work must not eat.”
The time has, therefore, come for all Ghanaians to re-orient their minds towards the role of the physically challenged in nation-building and stop spoon-feeding them, especially if they have the capacity to be productive.
We are not trying to suggest that nothing is being done to move the physically challenged from the streets into more productive activities.
A few years ago, the Ghana Society for the Physically Disabled (GSPD) established a chalk factory in Accra as a means of creating employment opportunities for its members.
The factory faced many problems, the major one being the lack of market for the chalk, although the Ghana Education Service (GES) had initially pledged to assist.
It is good to hear that the management of the factory has now secured a contract from the GES to produce chalk for schools.
The DAILY GRAPHIC calls on all well-meaning citizens of the land to assist the GSPD to expand its productive activities to create more jobs for the physically challenged.
We commend the society for going the extra mile to expand its scope to bring additional avenues for employment and income to its members, without waiting for central government and corporate support.
The DAILY GRAPHIC wishes the GSPD well in its latest endeavour to venture into dressmaking, especially in an era when the government is sewing free uniforms for schoolchildren.
What the society proposes to do requires the support of all, especially the state institution in charge of the sewing of the school uniforms, because any contract in that regard will help enhance the capacity of the GSPD’s sewing business.
We think the government alone cannot deal with the menace of begging, spearheaded largely by the physically challenged. The establishment of the National Disability Council by the government is part of the overall intervention to put in place an apex body to promote the necessary advocacy for the mitigation of the challenges facing the physically challenged.
Begging could be a good business for those who engage in it, but, for goodness sake, that venture undermines the dignity of the players. There is dignity in labour and everybody must resolve to contribute to the country’s productive endeavours. Let us rid the streets of all beggars now.
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