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{
    "id": 528990,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/528990/?format=api",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "As we sit here and deliberate on this Bill, we do not have the statistics to show us how many people out there are living with disabilities. This is a group that is vulnerable and has been forgotten until our Constitution was promulgated in 2010. The Constitution has brought on board Senators like Sen. Njoroge who are now proactive and advocating for people living with disability. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I fully support this Bill. Article 21(3) of the Constitution on implementation of rights and fundamental freedoms states as follows:- “All State organs and all public officers have the duty to address the needs of vulnerable groups within society, including women, older members of society, persons with disabilities, children, youth, members of minority or marginalized communities, and members of particular ethnic, religious or cultural communities.” We know that persons living with disabilities have been stigmatized in families. You find that some families lock up their children because they are embarrassed. We need to roll out civic education to sensitize those families that a disabled person does not mean that he cannot be able to perform given the facilities. What I would propose is about facilitation. If we facilitate disabled persons they can be able to perform like any other person. A good example is Sen. Njoroge here. He is somebody who is very proactive and has even moved Bills. We even know of a disabled person who was nominated by the President as a Permanent Secretary. So it means that disability is not inability if we facilitate persons living with disabilities. How do we facilitate these people? We have to give them facilities like wheel chairs. If, for instance, we advocate for education and the disabled people do not have wheelchairs to move around, how will they get to the classrooms? In Nairobi, for instance, you hardly see a disabled person in the streets because they do not have the means of movement. The key thing here is for counties to address this question of facilitation. They must tell us how many disabled persons are there per county so that we know what activities the disabled persons are doing. The Bill also brings out an amendment where 5 per cent of the jobs must be set aside for persons with disability. How are we going to go about this? There should be special schools in every county. For instance, Kerugoya School of the Deaf; I remember one of my child’s friends went to that school. Through the hearing aids, she was able to score a grade of C. The national Government in conjunction with the county governments should be able to promote the needs of the vulnerable people in the society who include the disabled persons. I know that there is a special fund for the youth and persons with disabilities but can you expect a person with disability to compete with the youth? The youths are proactive and young but people with disabilities cannot even move from their houses to go and look for this fund in the counties. There must be a way on how to reach people with disabilities and we can do this through county governments. We must commit them every quarter or every year the way the Bill has suggested. County governments should give us statistics of people with disabilities, their activities and what they are doing. They should also tell us if they have established a school within their counties. I do not see ourselves moving forward if the people with disabilities are denied the right to The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}