Festus Fajemilo Foundation (FFF), a disability focused organization, recently held a meeting with stakeholders from the health, disability, justice, private and public sectors towards enhancing inclusion for Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities (PPDs).
The stakeholders’ meeting was part of FFF’s Readdress Inclusion Rights and Empowerment (RIRE) Project with support from Pan-African Network of Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities and International Disability Alliance.
Giving a welcome remark at the stakeholders’ meeting, the team lead of the RIRE Project, Mr. Afolabi Fajemilo explained that the RIRE project seeks to advocate for the inclusion of persons with psychosocial disabilities in all spheres, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Fajemilo added that the essence of the meeting was to engage relevant stakeholders on how to ensure that issues of PPDs are not disregarded especially in policies and programming.
Ms. Titi Tade Technical Lead, RIRE project, who gave a report on a focused group discussion that was conducted stressed the need to ensure equitable access to care and treatment for PPDs across the country.
She also highlighted the need to ensure more training and retraining of health care providers about the rights of PPDs.
On his part, Project Officer, RIRE, Seun Dosunmu, shed more light on RIRE Project by detailing the initiative as an advocacy project that hopes to promote the rights of PPDs and advocate for Inclusion of PPDs in Policies and Pandemic response programs.
He also mentioned that the project so far has leveraged media platforms to advance the enlightenment of the public on what psychosocial disabilities are while anticipating the engagement of key agencies and stakeholders in Lagos State.
Mrs. Monisola Niyi-Odewale, a representative from the Lagos State Ministry of Justice who noted that the Lagos State Special People’s law does not make provision for PPDs, advised that PPDs can report any case of abuse or violation to the Directorate for citizens’ rights and the department at the State’s Ministry of Justice for legal support.
Present at the stakeholders meeting were representatives from the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, Lagos State Primary Health Care Board, Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs, healthcare professionals, PPDs, among others.