Paynesville City– The KDE Disability Africa Foundation has launched a training center to provide tuition free opportunities for people living with disabilities.
The empowerment program which is currently benefitting 21 people living with disabilities was opened to the public on October 5, 2020 where trainees are being taught fashion design, tailoring, computer science and graphic design.
Speaking at the launch via zoom from the United States, the Executive Director of KDE Disability Africa Foundation, Madam Kimma Wreh said there are enormous problems people who are physically challenged face, and her foundation’s support is to help ensure that the lives of people living with disabilities are transformed and improved.
Madam Wreh explained that the Tuan Wreh Institution and KDE Disability Africa Foundation have been at the forefront of the battle against poverty, income inequality and the disenfranchisement of unprotected and countless brothers and sisters in Africa.
Madam Wreh stressed the need for collective effort to create inclusive education facilities to support vulnerable and marginalized group of people.
“We believed poverty and income inequality are just not the problem of money, it is the problem of unequal opportunities,” she said.
“But we believe if we can work together, we can address income inequality, poverty, and the marginalization of people in our society.”
Speaking further, she explained that her institutions have helped girls, young women, children, and people living with disabilities by empowering them with practical skills.
Her institution’s goal she said, is to provide opportunities for the physically challenged in order to be independent and productive members in society.
“The skill training will one day enable them to learn and get job or start a business. This is how we envisage to eradicate poverty among our brothers and sisters in Liberia.” She, however, cautioned the students to take their lesson seriously, adding, it will bring joy and inspire the program’s organizers to invest more.
Also speaking at the event, the Representative of Montserrado County District #6, Samuel Enders, lauded the KDE Disability Africa Foundation for providing opportunities that will enable people living with disabilities to achieve their dreams.
Rep. Enders, who provided a 16- seated bus to commute students to and fro from school, encouraged the students to be dedicated and believed in themselves as they pursue their education, regardless of their condition.
“I want to encourage you to look inside yourself, when you are weak, look at the foundation which brought you. When you feel tired and something is holding you down, look at yourself and say you can make it,” Rep. Enders urged the beneficiaries.
For his part, beneficiary Omasco D. Johnson, a computer science student at the institute, explained that the KDE Disability Africa Foundation has revived his life as he experienced a terrible accident that made him to lose all hope.
Mr. Johnson explained that he has since put the calamity of the accident behind him and was ready to take every challenge in order to not be a liability in society.
Another beneficiary, Ms. Sarah Wallace, commended the foundation for opening the first ever disability school in Liberia and said she was inspired to attend since she was doing nothing.
She revealed after her graduation, she wants to be self-reliant to help support her family and impact other’s lives.
Ms. Wallace, who is learning tailoring and computer science revealed that she wants the foundation not to just focus on skill training or trade, but to establish a University in Liberia for people with disabilities.
The Executive Director for KDE and TWI, Kimma Wreh is passionate about empowering marginalized girls and young women who frequently lag behind male counterparts due to disabilities, school dropouts, social stigmas and poverty.
Madam Wreh is self-financing an expansion of the new training center during the pandemic at a great personal sacrifice and she is kindly appealing to humanitarian organizations to sponsor the students.
While the students are willing to make use of the opportunities, she says the lack of affordable transportation to commute them to and from school is a significant stumbling block to their learning process.