Far from the usual mood of celebration and camaraderie which would have been reigning among staff and key partners of TWIF NEWS as its Executive Director is a year older, it is rather lamentation as Kesah Princely retrospects on the abandonment of his peers with disabilities in Anglophone Cameroon.
This is owing to an ongoing separatist war between state and non-state forces fighting for a breakaway republic.
Hostilities have rendered many Persons with Disabilities, PWDs, to live miserably as the road to peace remains very narrow.
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As Kesah Princely, TWIF NEWS Executive Director, himself a disability advocate turns plus one Wednesday February 2, he paints a rather dark picture of his peers with disabilities in the country’s Northwest and Southwest Regions than organising the usual celebration with staff members and strategic partners.
Speaking in Buea on the conditions of PWDs in the war-torn Anglophone Cameroon, Kesah revealed that both government and humanitarian organizations have failed to provide a glimmer of hope to this vulnerable category of people.
He added that, they have been living in bondage for over five years of the deadly separatist conflict.
“No cause for celebration because, as a person with visual impairment myself, my tomorrow is very uncertain.
I am so devastated at the fact that Persons with Disabilities are wallowing in a deteriorating humanitarian crisis, and no one bothers about,” he sadly revealed.
Some PWDs who were bread winners in their families, according to Kesah, have now been turned into beggars.
The situation is worse for those who are degree holders, but have neither been recruited into the public nor the private sectors.
The Cameroonian society has a misconception that disability connotes incompetence.
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“Why should we attend the same lectures; write the same exams and after graduation, you feel that I am less productive because of my disability?,” he rhetorically questioned.
In different reports, Human Rights Watch has revealed that Persons with Disabilities in Anglophone Cameroon are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
High rate of unemployment, inadequate healthcare, lack of shelter and hunger are some of the issues PWDs find difficulties coping with.
The TWIF NEWS Executive Director frowned at the fact that some Non-governmental organizations are taking advantage of Persons with Disabilities to amass wealth amidst the deadly armed conflict.
The Entrepreneur, Journalist cum Disability Advocate disclosed that TWIF NEWS is bent on changing the narrative.
He stressed that the organization is not only for news dissemination, but a platform to build bridges for inclusive communities.
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