NDDC reassures people with disabilities on empowerment schemes

Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr Akwagaga Enyia, has re-affirmed the commitment of the commission to assist people living with disabilities through skill acquisition programmes to give them sustainable livelihoods.

According to a statement issued on Sunday by the NDDC Director, Corporate Affairs, Charles Obi Odili, the NDDC acting managing director gave the assurance this during a courtesy call by members of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD) at the NDDC headquarters, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Dr Enyia said the commission’s Directorates of Youths, Sports, Culture and Women Affairs and that of CID were fully mobilised to engage with people living with disabilities and directed that they be accommodated in the various skills acquisition programmes being rolled out by the NDDC.

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She charged them not to see themselves as disabled, urging them to keep to their resolve to shun violent confrontations but to embrace dialogue instead, even as she promised that the Commission would study their requests for assistance in various areas for necessary action.

Earlier in his address, the regional chairman of JONAPWD, Mr David Enogho, promised that the group would no longer be confrontational in making its demands, adding that this was because the NDDC had given the group the opportunity to use dialogue to settle outstanding issues.

“The underdevelopment of the region has compounded the challenges facing us as persons with disabilities. We are forced to live in inappropriate conditions. We experience hell while on earth as a result of the unwillingness and neglect by those in positions of authority to evolve functional and sustainable mechanism to address both the human and infrastructural development of the people of the Niger Delta region.

“Whenever God wants to put smiles on the faces of people, he appoints a woman. Hence, to us, your appointment is divine. Therefore, we wish to appeal that you use this God-given opportunity to evolve plans and programmes that will empower us, thereby enabling us to maximize our God-given potentials and contributing our quota to the development of the society,” he said.