AYV News, December 4, 2024
On the commemoration of the International Day of Persons with Disability this year, former Minister of Social Welfare and Children’s Affairs, Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden has called on all and sundry to include Persons With Disabilities into leadership seats.
Celebrating the resilience of PWDs in Sierra Leone, Dr. Blyden said: “Let’s raise awareness on the important theme of including Persons With Disabilities (PWD) into Leadership seats. December 3 is a Day to push for more Political Will around Disability issues. Today, I salute PWDs because you are daily champions amidst many challenges. I salute all social workers including Minister of Social Welfare. I also have a special commendation for the team at Sierra Leone Union on Disability Issues. Let’s keep pushing the message that no decisions on any matter around PWDs unless PWDs are involved in all those decision-making processes”.
With this year’s theme: ‘Amplifying the leadership of persons with disabilities for an inclusive and sustainable future’, the leadership of persons with disabilities is epitomised by the global disability rights movement’s slogan “Nothing About Us Without Us”.
It connotes the basic requirements of participation, representation and inclusion and calls for persons with disabilities to actively shape the conditions of their lives.
One of the priorities of the global disability agenda is to advance the agency and leadership of persons with disabilities. In the past decades, persons with disabilities and organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) have already championed for the changes in their communities, and have been leading many of the community-led initiatives not only to advance their own rights, and wellbeing but also promoting inclusive development for instance enabling universal access to basic services by all; they have done so by taking both targeted and mainstreaming approaches to disability inclusion through, among others, consultation, data collection and analysis, and support with advocacy and accountability efforts.
The observance of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2024 (IDPD 2024) takes place against the backdrop of pivotal global developments, from the Summit of the Future to the upcoming Second World Summit for Social Development.
These key global Summits will complement one another in providing a continuous roadmap toward disability-inclusive and sustainable peace and development. By emphasising this complementarity, the theme chosen for the observance in 2024 aims to underscore the importance of leveraging the leadership of persons with disabilities to ensure disability-inclusive and sustainable peace and development for all.
