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Prez Mahama dialogues with the marginalised

President Mahama interacting with the marginalised groups after the meeting at the Flagstaff House in Accra. Among them are some ministers of state.The government is creating a database on persons with disability, as well as other vulnerable people in the country. The objective, according to President John Dramani Mahama, is to facilitate their access to government social protection programmes.

He mentioned the free-of-charge registration of vulnerable persons with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) as one of the benefits that the database would present.

Meeting with the vulnerable

President Mahama made this known yesterday, when he dialogued with representatives of vulnerable and marginalised groups at the Flagstaff House, Kanda in Accra, as part of a series of metings he has programmed to have with various identifiable groups.

The meeting allowed the vulnerable – including the visually impaired, the deaf, rescued children from child labour, the mentally retarded, rehabilitated prostitutes, rehabilitated drug addicts and HIV/AIDS ambassadors – to make their challenges known.

Their concerns centred on stigmatisation, discrimination and the difficulty of persons with disability to gain easy access to public places.

They, therefore, appealed to the government to take steps to fight stigmatisation and discrimination against them, ensure that all public places have facilities for the physically challenged and employ sign language interpreters at all hospitals and other important public places.

President Mahama affirmed the government's commitment to create the needed environment for persons with disability to unearth their potential and also to have their  share of the national cake.

Leap beneficiaries

President Mahama said the government would increase the number of beneficiaries of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) to 100,000 by the end of next year.

Among other things, he said a Domestic Worker Support and Protection Bill, which seeks to protect domestic workers, was being promulgated, adding that the government would establish the National Council for the Aged to provide the requisite support to the aged.

On stigmatisation, President Mahama noted with concern that stigmatisation, which was born out of ignorance, killed the initiative of the vulnerable.

Therefore, he said, the government would collaborate with relevant organisations to sensitise the public to the issue, with the view to eradicating it from society.

By Musah Yahaya Jafaru/Daily Graphic/Ghana

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