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"content": "proverbs and sayings seem to delineate the fact that say that PWDs are ungrateful or unhelpful. However, this has changed over time. I must commend the former Minister of Education, Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri. During his tenure we were able to pass the first ever policy on special needs. It is important to say that. The policy has since been revised to create a new policy on learners and trainees with disabilities that the President launched about a month ago. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, PWDs are there and cannot be ignored. In fact, the best way to say is that we may not know how to define it, but we know it when we see it. There are also invisible disabilities such as what we call psycho-social disabilities, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and dementia. All these are mental health issues and are also types of disabilities. When you see a deaf person, you may not know that they are deaf until they start signing to communicate with you. Therefore, we have a long way to go in terms of ensuring that we bring on board Persons with Disabilities (PWDs). Why do I say so? If you look at the level of education, we have 287 special schools in the country. We have about 2,900 special units in 23,000 primary schools in this country. Out of these, we only have about 90,000 pupils and students with disabilities. Where are the rest? This means that they are not in school. Out of the total number of employed Kenyans within the public service, we have less than one per cent being PWDs. So, they are not in employment. PWDs are also missing in the empowerment programmes by Government. When you look at the 30 per cent preferential procurement for previously disadvantaged groups of people ably borrowed from broad based economic empowerment in South Africa, the uptake of such provisions is such that PWDs are only able to take twp per cent of the 30 per cent. The rest are women and the youth, yet in actual sense, they should have been the ones who benefit the most. Why? This is because PWDS also have youth and women. So, they should have gotten the lion’s share, but they still get the least because of the many years of discrimination and marginalization. So, to the point where you have somebody, for example, having a company and looking for a job, for PWDs you have to empower them, make them believe that they can do business and help them register the company then they will qualify. Yesterday I was glad to host in my office some of the people that my office works with who have just signed a contract with one of the companies for employment. That is what we need to do. We have to go out there and source for opportunities for them. We have done that in the past. I must commend Safaricom because we have had another batch of PWDs, the third one, that we have posted there. We must also appreciate Barclays Bank and other such companies. Soon I am meant to have a meeting with the Agricultural Food Authority (AFA) because we all need to do so. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it requires that kind of facilitation. These are not the kind of people that you will find ready for an opportunity; you have to sensitise them so that they can believe in themselves and take up the opportunities. We have to sensitise employers as well, to believe that PWDS are not going to add cost and become dead weight to their organisations. That is always the fear. If you see, for example, a wheel chair user, you will think that they need assistance. You will not see them as people who 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."
}