By Matt Falloon
Stabroek News
May 16, 2001

Guyana's first vocational training centre for disabled persons, the second of its kind in the Caribbean, opened its doors this week in Georgetown.

The Open Doors Centre, on the ground floor of the Mildred Mansfield Centre, D'Urban Street, Georgetown, was inaugurated on Monday and immediately received 36 students for education in craft, information technology, electronic and electrical engineering and remedial education.

The centre is intended to help disabled students integrate into society more fully, allowing them to break into the job market and to become more independent, according to a release from the Delegation of the European Commission to Guyana and Suriname issued yesterday. The programme has been funded by the European Commission-affiliated AIFO (Associazione Italiana Amici Di Raoul Follerau) as part of a 800,000 Euros project and follows five years of background work, including the involvement of the Ministry of Health.

According to the release, the project will be started up by AIFO before being handed over to the Ministry of Health, which has been charged with examining the possibility of a larger location for the centre, which could not accommodate the 65 applications received from disabled students.

Under the project, the Government of Guyana [GOG] is supposed to provide a building to house the centre. The release stated that AIFO had been given permission to use the bottom flat of the Mildred Mansfield Centre from the GOG, but stated that the space was "restrictive".

Project Manager, Frederico Marcon, remarked that space, rather than the needs of the job market, had become the determining factor in deciding what could be taught to the disabled students.

Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, told Stabroek News yesterday that he had not been aware of the problem prior to taking office, but stated, "As Minister I would say they do need a larger facility and we will look for a permanent facility for them.

"I do not have a particular building in mind as yet," he said. "But I am now addressing this with my people here."

Manager of the new centre, Kwesi Moore, explained the aims and purpose of the project at the school yesterday.

"We hope that this centre will be a stepping stone to the full integration of training services with institutes such GITC [Guyana Industrial Training Centre] and Carnegie [School of Home Economics]," he said.

"We want to inspire these institutions to see that these people have potential," he continued. "They can provide an economical benefit at the end of their training, either as part of the normal economy or as self-employed."

The project is being run alongside a micro-credit facility, which will enable students graduating after their one-year courses to establish themselves in business.

"We are aiming to give the students an all-round education," he said. "So we include in the curriculum for classes, entrepreneurial skills such as accounting, economics and statistics. The students are then equipped for business.

"So far, I have noticed that motivation is high, the students are excited and glad for the opportunity to do something.

"We [Guyanese] have a history of stigmatising and stereotyping disabled people," Moore said. "Until these walls are broken down there will always be a problem.

"I am hoping there can be the right legislation in place to ensure that people with disabilities are employed. Once qualified, they should be employed."

He stated that the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Consultative Association of Guyanese Industry had been contacted and had expressed an interest in assisting the centre in encouraging the employment of people with disabilities.

The students at the centre were enthusiastic about the opportunity to better themselves.

Shafeena Potter, present in Kharpaul Singh's Remedial Education class, explained that she enjoyed the classes and intended to set up her own business in flower arranging - the subject she was most interested in.

She also remarked that she was keen to see others be given the opportunity to be trained vocationally.

Miss Reid, a teaching assistant from New Amsterdam and student at Open Doors, hopes to take back the skills she learns in the craft classes to become a teacher to those with disabilities.

In the IT classes, Jaime Skeete looked forward to becoming a computer engineer at the end of his course.

"This is giving me the opportunity to familiarise myself with repair programmes and software implementation," he explained. "I am hoping to later go into computer architecture [computer design]."

Nigel Richardson, a wireless operator at GT&T, was hoping to get more equipped and computer literate "so that when I'm at work I can operate computers more effectively and further myself in the company."

Teachers, Khurpaul Singh and Neville Duncan, discussed the project and its mechanics.

"Some of the students did not go through formal education," Singh remarked. "So Remedial Education is designed to develop on what little they have. We try to develop their literacy and numerical skills so that they can go on to the other skills."

Electrical engineer and tutor at the centre, Neville Duncan, who sustained a disability in 1999 after complications from an accident in 1992, is a shining example of what the disabled community can achieve.

"I completed the New York Marathon in my wheelchair last year," he said. "And last year was part of the first Guyana Wheelchair Basketball Team to compete at the first Caribbean Wheelchair Basketball tournament in Trinidad....

"I attended a CBR [Community Based Rehabilitation] conference last year and heard about the project and decided to offer my services," he said.

"I have three students with hearing and speech impairments and two with speech impairments but the beauty is that they can all read and write," he said.

"A medium has been established," he said. "They all show a keen interest in wanting to push themselves further.

"We, as teachers, must be guides and counsellors to the students as well as tutors. We impart knowledge but must also help them make the right choices. At the end of the course, they must face the reality that they still have a disability and they have to think best how they will fit into so-called normal society.

"We as disabled people have to be patient and tolerant," he continued. "Will the public have the patience of the instructors here?

"Some days they will be frustrated, they have to cope with their disability as well as the society at large," he stated. "However, this centre has opened the door for them and it is important for that to not end here," he said. "It is important for all parents of disabled children to let them know that all is not lost, they still have a life and it is our responsibility to help them achieve what they want to achieve rather than forcing them into things they do not want to do."

Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Earl Boatswain, visited the school yesterday and was very impressed with the set-up.

"Although we do have special needs schools," he said, "none go this far. We would like to see what we can do to complement what is happening here and integrate this with other vocational training centres.

"We, at the ministry, will probably have to do a little bit more to raise public awareness of disabled people and their needs and drive for greater acceptance. These people do and can make a significant contribution to our national development," he concluded.