BY Diana Meneto (KNA)
Persons with Disabilities (PWDS) in Kajiado County will soon have a mainstreaming fund if the County Assembly approves the Kajiado County Disability Mainstreaming Bill, 2023.
According to the bill, the fund shall consist of money appropriated by the county assembly, grants and donations to the fund, and income generated from the proceeds of the fund.
The chairperson of the Assembly’s sectoral committee on Disability Mainstreaming, Hon. Betty Taany said that once the Bill sails through, the Persons With Disabilities will be encouraged to operate entrepreneurial ventures that will help them to be self-reliant.
“Persons with disabilities have been misused and abused, some are moved to sit by the roadside to beg for money from other people’s experience. These will be brought to an end,” said Betty Taany during the close of public participation on the bill with stakeholders at Kajiado town.
Hon.Taany, adds that PWDs in Kajiado continue facing a myriad of other challenges including stigmatization, lack of registration, difficulty in accessing basic services like education and health, and poor living conditions among others.
She is however hopeful that all the challenges facing PWDs will be addressed once the bill sails through.
In the Bill, the county assembly shall appropriate not less than Sh 50 million in any financial year to the fund.
The Kajiado County Disability Mainstreaming Board shall be established and shall have at least a third of the members being PWDs, a fund administrator, and representatives of the departments responsible for disability mainstreaming, education, health, public service, and finance.
The Board may use the fund to buy assistive devices for PWDs, support education programmes including the grant of bursary to persons with disabilities, facilitate training, capacity building, mentorship, and the provision of business development services to persons with disabilities in the county, cater for the administration expenses of the fund and any other activity in furtherance of the activity of the act.
In addition, the board may use the money to finance start-up businesses for PWDs, establish PWDs micro and small enterprises, and agri-business, and support and facilitate the provision of medical services to PWDs including nutritional services among others. The board shall also give special consideration to persons with intellectual disabilities.
The Disability Mainstreaming Committee has already conducted public participation in all five sub-counties in Kajiado and is writing the report that will be tabled before the assembly once complete.