Damilola Odunukan
Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalists, in commemoration of the International Day of Persons With Disabilities, calls for the inclusion of persons with disabilities across all sectors.
The theme is Breaking Barriers, normalising disability and the Media’s promotion of inclusion and it was set to spotlight the challenges encountered by PwDs.
The Centre said that the media should ensure that it bridges the gap in communication between PwDs and the outer world and advocate for their absolute inclusion.
John Bamidele, one of the participants of the discussion held on X Space talk, emphasized the need for the implementation of policies catering for the inclusion of PwDs members.
“Those policies are followed, and those who are refusing to follow are disciplined and there are stringent measures for not following those policies”, said Bamidele.
Speaking on the role the media need to take in ensuring the advocacy of PwD, media practitioners are admonished to publish any individual culpable of violating the policies implementation or rights of the people.
Bamidele also suggested feasible solutions to make the inclusion of PwDs possible across various sectors – education, media, etc.
He suggested a learning model for both the private and government stakeholders in the education sectors, through the employment of specialists and professionals to give first-hand training to PwDs.
For accurate teaching of PwDs, he advised that every stakeholder in the education sector should deploy quality teaching models and adopt modern tools in their facilities to enhance perfect learning ability for PwDs.
“We have what is called Universal Design for learning. Ensure that principles therein match the educational system and are in grind with the policies of whether government schools or private schools or any institution of learning to ensure that your system is already designed to accommodate PwDs”, said Bamidele.
More so, he implored government officials to stop the act of “tokenism” and, instead, practise genuine and ideal inclusion.
Some policies suggested during the conversation include educational policy, anti-bullying policy, media and communication policy.
However, another participant, Jake Eplle, added that there is an inclusion curriculum in the education sector and that there is a budgetary allocation for the implementation of the policy by the government.
Epelle noted that his organisation has been able to implement the establishment of Journalists for inclusion to build a structure.
“We registered them, help them to build the structure and I want to stay at the sideline so that they can manage their affairs. But the idea is to ensure that this group of interested journalists will advocate for persons with disabilities”, Epelle said.
Epelle added that it’s time to push for the closure of PwDs not just media, but at the management cadre of the business of media, thereby making a reference to the Gospel Musician and Owner of Fresh Fm, Yinka Ayefele.
He also noted the need to focus on media reportage that favours PwDs and their idea to be a force to reckon with in the media space.
The host of the programme, Blessing Oladunjoye, admonished other participants to ensure that they have PwDs in mind when sharing their content on various media platforms for holistic inclusion.
“Media professionals in our respective workplaces, we can break barriers that PwDs encounter”, Oladunjoye remarked.
