By Timfuchi Aaron
The media has been identified as a major partner in promoting the inclusion of persons with disabilities, especially during humanitarian crises like what the North West region is currently going through.
However, the language of the media practitioners can build words that could negatively affect persons with disabilities.
In a one-day training, the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services through the disability inclusion humanitarian action project, has schooled media practitioners around the North West on proper ways to approach disability-related issues.
The media practitioners were trained to feature disability inclusion in their reporting of the crisis.
The project seeks to gather more support and care for those with impairments in the region.
The coordinator of the project, Asheri Ngah says their intervention will mainly be in the area of health as well as moral and financial support to the disabled persons.
“Persons with hearing impairments communicate mainly through sign language. Sometimes through instances of distribution or gathering of people, the services are not always available. These are some of the things that the project will be looking at”, she said.
She disclosed that the project also entails training some sign language interpreters to be able to communicate during interventions in the community during outreach programs.
Asheri Ngah also revealed that they are working on establishing a network of personal assistance that will mainly benefit persons with disabilities.