Beating life’s challenges

Some, they say, are born great with golden spoons in their mouths and there are those who are also born with disability through no fault of theirs.

A good number of persons with disabilities have had harrowing experiences in life. They have had to live their lives in the face of rejection, stigmatisation, deprivation and isolation, having to mostly live on the crumps that society offers them. 

But rather than  give up and take to the streets to beg  for alms, some have  been able to make the best out of their situation by learning trades and  fending for themselves.

At the Accra Rehabilitation Centre, the Ghana Association of the Physically Disabled has set up a chalk factory for the physically challenged to train them in chalk production and other vocational skills that will bring them income and sustain them for life.

According to Ms Esther Nanor, one of the workers at the factory, the factory supplies  chalk to the Ghana Education Service and other private institutions.

She observed with satisfaction that demand for their chalk was very high but the factory needed a spacious  workplace to dry its products and more capital to purchase raw materials.

Ms Nanor revealed that the company currently relied on proceeds from  the sale of the chalk and loans from the bank to buy the raw materials for the chalk production.

She appealed to the government  and other benevolent organisations  to provide  the factory  with a state-of-the-art equipment  and a spacious  working space for them to meet the demand of schools in the country.

In a related development, Mr Kofi Sasraku, a visually impaired who is always seen around the TUC traffic light, said he was forced to beg due to the fact that he was unable to see and work on his own.

He said if he could be supported financially and provided with some skills that would enable him earn a living, he  would get off the  streets.