By Stephen Ephraem
CHIMANIMANI: People Living With Disabilities (PLWD) in Chimanimani are seeking assistance to fund income generating projects in the eastern border settlement.
Tapiwa Godo Sigauke said their association seeks to empower members.
“Our association was formed after Tropical Cyclone Idai hit Chimanimani in March 2019. It has 66 members of which 26 are men and 40 are females and children. The group is led by a 7 member committee.
“We decided to form the association after people with visual, hearing and speech impairment, mental challenges and physical challenges failed to acquire food handout during the emergency phase.
“The worst hit of our members were school going children who failed to attend lessons due to the disaster. So we saw the need to administer ourselves in order to make lives better for our members through self-reliance,” he said.
On why they are seeking assistance to start projects, Tapiwa Godo indicated that able bodies tend to forget about the disabled needs.
“When services are provided, people tend to forget the need to consider those with disability challenges. We are expected to queue or compete with the able bodied people. Some of our members can’t fetch water on their own since most service are not friendly to People Living With Disabilities.
“Due to that challenge, we feel that it’s high time our association start to embark on income generation projects so that every member can improve where s/he stays and is not found wanting.
“We are looking forward to do low cost project such as poultry, nutrition gardens and trading. That way we can improve our livelihoods by buying stands for our members and build homes which are friendly to the physically challenged,” added the Chairman.
