A group of people living with physical challenges working in a skills training centre in the east of Freetown have on Saturday January 30, 2021 appealed to Non-governmental organizations, the Government of Sierra Leone and other humanitarian organizations for tailoring, gara-tie-dying, carpentry and welding equipment.
Both trainees and experts of the United Polio Brothers and Sisters Inclusive Training Centre say they need the equipment to improve the quality of their products and ease the process of production so that they would be able to make a decent living as persons with disability.
Some of the items produced by workers in this centre are as follows: wooden chairs and beds, cooking stoves (coal pots), wooden and metal doors and gates, Gara clothes etc.
Cardew K. Johnson Cole, the Financial Secretary and Head of the Carpentry department at the centre, explained because they do not have enough tools and equipment, they delay in meeting the completion date for customers who contract them to produce some of items they produce at the Centre. He added that this has made many of their customers to seek such services elsewhere. “We are finding it difficult to develop the vocational centre, and even to make a living. All the tools that we are using here are old and they are not even enough,” he reiterated.
He said they themselves set up the Centre and have run it by their effort. He said through personal contributions among them as persons living with disability they were able to raise the money which they used to build the structure and bought some equipment.
He said that they believed that by establishing the institution they would be able to sustain their families and reduce the number of beggars on the streets.
He added that they started the institution with blacksmithing, but soon after incorporated carpentry. He revealed that now the institution has grown to include over nine departments, producing items and training persons living with physical challenges in tailoring, carpentry, blacksmithing, hair-dressing, welding etc. He noted that all these departments lack the necessary equipment to maximize the efficiency of their efforts.
He said that the Vocational centre consists of both abled and disabled persons. He admitted that as a person living with disabilities, they cannot live without abled persons, and reasoned that in order to make their work easier they have included some abled bodied men with whom they carry out the production processes in the various departments in the Centre.
He asserted, “The vocational centre was established mainly to help change our stories from worse to good, or better or even best. We usually raise funds to develop the Centre and take care of the association so that no one would be seen begging on the streets.”
He said that the United Polio Brothers and Sisters Association consists of over 380 people and they all survive from the centre.
Cole revealed that they have had no support from past and present Government since the centre was established even though they had reached out to them on several occasions.
“We are still appealing to the Government to come to our aid by improving the Centre. We want to see the number of beggars on the street reduced and homeless people provided with shelter,” he concluded.
By Ibrahim S.Bangura
02/02/2021. ISSUE NO: 7993