The Bulunkutu Rehabilitation Centre in Maiduguri, which caters for disabled persons, urgently needs to be reconstructed to give people an opportunity to learn skills and become self-sufficient.
It will also promote the “Stop Begging” campaign in Borno State.
Abubakar Mohammed Kalwa Kalwa, the chairman of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities, urged the state government to reconstruct the centre for the disabled in Maiduguri, adding that the government of Borno State had indicated interest in helping.
Kalwa said that if the rehabilitation centre was reconstructed it would give disabled people opportunities to become self-employed, adding impetus to the “Stop Begging” campaign.
Mohammed Aji, the secretary of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities, said rebuilding the rehabilitation centre was “paramount” because it was vital that more disabled people should learn skills that would help them to make money and become self-sufficient.
“Many of the disabled people who beg are unhappy. They would prefer to make their own money so that they can stop begging.”
He said if the centre was reconstructed, disabled people could learn tailoring, shoemaking embroidery and other skills.
If the government was serious about banning begging in the streets of Maiduguri, it urgently needed to reconstruct the centre, Aji said.
He said the centre had been in place for years, but it was closed because of insufficient equipment and lack of infrastructure.
He had been among the few people who had been trained in tailoring at the centre in 2008.
Bukar Grema, a youth leader of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities, said the rehabilitation centre was originally meant for people with special needs.
“It is the only place that can give back the dignity of disabled people,” he said. “And it will promote the ‘Stop Begging’ campaign by giving disabled people skills so that they will not need to beg.”
Grema urged the government to consider the request for reconstructing the centre because it would improve the quality of disable people’s lives and their wellbeing.
