Former KCCA People With Disabilities (PWD) Councillor Joyce Acan Okenyi has sounded a strong message to Government and other policy makers in the country to root for policies that allow people with disabilities to thrive alongside other Ugandans.
The experienced politician made the remarks after successfully being nominated in the race for the NRM flag bearer for Northern Uganda Member of Parliament for PWDs at the party Secretariat in Kampala on Wednesday 12.
She faulted the various physical planning units in the country for the authorisation of construction of PWDs unfriendly buildings without putting the plight of the physically impaired into consideration.
She goes on to refer to her time at KCCA where building plans would only be approved by the physical planning department if they had such features such as lifts to allow accessibility for the PWDs.
The highly qualified human resource manager pledged to be an interesting voice for her constituents once she gets elected in the office she once sought in 2016 before losing to the incumbent.
She pledged to prioritize the access to education opportunities for the physically impaired children by extensively lobbying for the funds to make this possible. She further argued that this won’t be a hard task given her unmatched achievement in the field during her time as PWD councillor at KCCA where she helped acquire over 500 scholarships.
Acan also said there is need to institute and facilitate the establishment of sign language schools in all the districts of the country so as to give the visually impaired access to education, adding that once elected, she will not rest until this becomes a policy.
WHO IS JOYCE ACAN OKENY?
ACan is Ugandan politician who started her political journey in the late 90s as a representative for the PWDs at the Nakawa Urban council between 1998 and 2005.
In 2006, she was elected to the KCCA as a representative for the PWDs a position she held for a record 10 years until 2016.
In 2015, she contested for Northern MP for the PWDs before losing to the incumbent William Nyokrach by a mere 30 votes.
She successfully petitioned against Nyokrach’s victory on account of irregularities but she was dismayed when the same culprit was allowed on the ballot in the by-election which she says was unfair.
She holds a master’s degree in human resource management and a Bachelor’s in adult and Community Education, all from Makerere University.
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