NGO: ROACI wants more priority given to people with disabilities, child abuse victims

March 23, 2024

A Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) Reach Out Africa Charity Initiative (ROACI) wants government at all levels to give more priority to people living with disabilities and vicitms of child abuse.

The CEO of ROACI, Ms Princess Nkoyo said this during the organisation's maiden Unite For Change Summit; Empowering Youths, Women and Changing Lives which recently held at Bankole Folawiyo Baptist Church, Surulere, Lagos.

Nkoyo said that ROACI focused on improving the standard of living in children, teenagers and women in the society as well as impacting knowledge on the society.

"Impacting knowledge and ideas that can create a sustainable environment for profitable productivity.

"Everybody needs something and you might just be the person that has knowledge about that thing that they don't have.

"This is the maiden edition and even though the awareness for this programme wasn't well created, we pulled a sizable number of crowd," she said.

The CEO said that she looked forward to creating more awareness in the second edition as well as going into different states in the country to enlarge the organisation's charitable mission and objectives.

Nkoyo said that speakers flew in from abroad to give lectures on different aspects of lives that would be beneficial to us in future.

"So, I expect participants to put into practice what they have been taught so that they can start to rip the benefits of the programme," she said.

A Child Protection and Abuse Advocate based in the U.S., Ms Atim Tolbert said that most times, abuse starts from the home therefore called on parents to be observant around children.

"Also, parents need to understand that there are choices they make in their home when it comes to domestic violence and this affects the children.

"We, as parents don't understand that when we fight and argue in the home in front of the kids, they are watching us and learning such behaviour from us.

"The kids end up becoming the same people that we are when they become grown. Some become bullies in school, have low self esteem and shy away from things," she said.

Tolbert said that sexual abuse on children from friends, relatives and family members end up resulting to depression in the children and leaving them emotionally and psychologically scared.

She said that people needed to start asking themselves why they wanted to have children if they were not prepared to give them the best attention and care needed for their development.

"Our focus right now is to build these children for our future. 

"Some parents don't send their children to school, instead, they send them on errands to hawk stuffs in the market and what have you.

"Child abuse also has to do with not sending your children to school as well as providing basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing for their development," Tolbert said.

She said that in a country where the poverty rate was high, then parents should focus on just having one child that they could adequately cater for.

"We need to stop the cycle of bringing children to the world that we can't provide basic amenities and education for which inadvertently turns them into misfits in the society," Tolbert said.

She said that sex offenders who were in the habit of abusing children were sick people who needed some kind of intervention or who should be put in therapy.

"I don't subscribe to jail terms for them because after serving their sentence, some become even more hardened and go back to doing the same thing more despicably.

"So, the first thing you want to do to sex offenders is to register them so that you can monitor their activities and put them in therapy," Tolbert said.

The CEO, Phatbird Ltd, Customer Care Champion and Rights for Disabilities and Advocate, Ms Affi Tubby said that the society needed to engage in behaviours that would make those with disabilities feel less disabled.

Accordingly to Tubby, the United Nations (UN) convention for people with disability have said that disability is made mostly by environmental issues.

"So, somebody may have a disability but if the society supports the person then the person can be less disabled.

"For example, a wheelchair person may not be able to use the steps but in order to make things less disabling for them, you create a wheelchair ramp.

"If you want to make people feel less disabled then you have to change your discriminatory attitude towards people with disabilities," she said.

Tubby, who is based in the UK said that if the government failed to see people with disabilities as a priority, then they were setting themselves up to fail because one person with disability could make a change.

"You can give them a job, make sure things are available for them to get to work and they will work even harder than those of us who are not disabled.

"For instance, my daughter has Attention Deficiency Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) which is a part of the altruistic spectrum but she is a doctor.

"So, we should stop discriminating against these people because they can be whatever they decide to be if given the proper environment and care to enable them do so," she said.

Tubby said that people with disabilities were more prone to sexual abuse, financial exploitations and all kinds of exploitations because they were not being prioritised.

"They don't need your pity, they just need to be treated equally and provided for by ensuring that services are in place to make their life less disabled," she said.