Ho, July 1, GNA - Voice of People with Disability (VOICE) Ghana, a Ho-based disability interest group, has said it would enroll the mentally retarded, epileptics and habitual drunks in its rehabilitation programmes.
Francis Asong, the Chief Executive, announced this at the NGO’s 2015 Annual General Meeting held in Ho.

He said the move was necessitated by the grim circumstances of such people, often left un-kept, despised and without medical help. Mr Asong said the programme, in collaboration with an English Charity, Basic Needs, would be undertaken in 16 districts.
He said already more than 400 of such people had been identified in a baseline survey in four of the 16 districts - Ho-West, Ho-Central, Agotime-Ziope and Adaklu.
Mr Asong said the three-year project, from 2015, would progress hand-in-hand with the Psychiatric Units of the hospitals.

Voice-Ghana will provide the wherewithal for these health professionals to move from their posts to the communities to handle the cases,” he stated. He said additionally, the project would provide the efficacious but expensive drugs, now unavailable, at the psychiatric units of the hospitals. The AGM Attended by 70 delegates, across the Region, besides approving the 2014 minutes of the 2014 AGM, discussed the varied projects of the NGO.

The projects include the STAR-Ghana supported advocacy for the provision of disabled access facilities in public places and engagements to establish friendly schools and building of wheelchair ramps in 70 school buildings. Other projects under STAR-Ghana funding are Increased Access and Retention of Children with Disability in mainstream inclusive and special needs education system.

VOICE-Ghana also has running projects on mainstreaming disability issues into local governance, advocacy support for the involvement of People with Disabilities (PwDs) in local governance, and building capacities of local government workers on impacting key components of Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities on the development plans.

Open Society for Initiative in West Africa, (OSIWA) - USA; Mend Trust - New Zealand; and Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition; also support VOICE-Ghana projects. Mr Asong said the NGO was slowly but surely gliding to it set the target of becoming a Disability Think-Tank and the relevant constitutional works and alignments and networking were in progress.

Mr Daniel Quampah, on behalf CYF Partners, an Accounting Firm, presented the audited accounts of the NGO to the meeting, which he said was orderly, and lauded it for being among the best 10 of the numerous groups undertaking STAR-Ghana support projects.