Friends of the Disabled CharityFriends of the Disabled Charity

Aku Christy Orduh, Director of FOTD provides disabled people with the tools necessary to gain economic self-sufficiency and full integration into society.

The NeW idEa.
Christy recognizes that current efforts to integrate people with disabilities into society are often severely hampered by societal prejudice and unrelenting poverty. Unless these fundamental problems are tackled, current rehabilitation and reintegration programs will not be successful. Addressing these challenges, Christy focuses on three primary areas. First, she attempts to lessen societal prejudice through the development of enabling and non-discriminatory environments in which people with and without disabilities can interact. Second, she creates programs that respond to the physical, educational, and economic needs of disabled people. And finally, she works to enact legislation to protect the rights of people with disabilities. As a focal point of her public awareness campaigns and advocacy work, Christy has developed the first Nigerian learning center, a place where able-bodied and disabled people are trained alongside each other and where the disabled are sometimes the instructors for able-bodied students. As she provides them with the means to become economically self-sufficient, she simultaneously breaks down the societal stereotype of the disabled as burdens to society. Christy is spreading her model through an expanding basic education curriculum and vocational training program at the center and through the creation of similar centers in neighboring areas.

THE PROBLEM
Nigeria has ten million people with disabilities, about nine million of whom live below the poverty line. The main source of income for disabled people is street begging, and housing for these individuals consists primarily of makeshift dwellings which provide little or no protection for them or their meager belongings. Obtaining food depends on begging, and therefore primarily on luck. Education and employment opportunities are grossly limited because of prevailing discriminatory practices against this group. Indeed, families often reject their own members with disabilities, a situation which can result in severe psychological problems. Further exacerbating these challenges, Nigeria has no legislation–beyond the general laws that apply to all citizens– which protect the unique rights of disabled people. read more 1 | 2| 3