Keetmashoop — Different key stakeholders, with the noticeable absence of both the local and regional councils, recently consulted during the final stakeholders' workshop on the restructuring of the Keetmanshoop Disability Resource Centre (DRC).

The Division Rehabilitation and the Directorate Social Services under the Ministry of Health and Social Services organized this very important session with the aim to define functions, programmes and activities to be offered, and to develop a new approach for the provision of services and rename the centre.

Though the Keetmanshoop Disability Resource Centre has been under-utilized since its inception in 1998, it has great potential and can be an integral part of improving services and programmes to persons with disabilities as well as many other Namibians.

According to Anna-Lusa Nekwaya, Head of Disability Resource Centres in Namibia, the under-utilization of DRCs in Namibia is mostly as a result of non-consultation with relevant stakeholders and therefore she expressed the importance of the presence of local and regional government at these pivotal gatherings they have been invited to.

It is furthermore believed that the renaming of the Keetmanshoop DRC is essential for the restructuring process to be effective.

Ideally the centre will not only become a venue for disability-related activities, but a place known and utilized by the community at large.

This alone can have a positive impact on increasing awareness and understanding of disability issues.

Stakeholders at the Keetmanshoop workshop proposed the changing of the name of the Keetmanshoop DRC in order to cater for all spheres of the community. They furthermore maintained that the theme of the centre should encompass unity, inclusivity, integration, equality, empowerment and human rights.

The stakeholders also insisted that security at the centre be implemented as a matter of urgency due to the countless break-ins at the centre presently.

The Keetmanshoop DRC currently offers three workshops for tailoring and carpentry, training in sign language, a day care centre and bicycle shop.

It is however envisaged that the centre should: provide office space to Rehabilitation Division staff, have a say care centre for children with and without disabilities, provide space for alcohol and drug aftercare groups, and should implement income-generating efforts.

The centre should furthermore provide physio, orthopedic and speech therapy opportunities, should engage in braille distribution and promotion, HIV/Aids and TB programmes, support mental health patients, provide disability awareness training, and office space for organizations of people with disabilities.

The centre should also be a community centre where any group may come and hold workshops and meetings, counselling and referral services, and be a place for training and disability sports activities, recreational activities for people with disabilities and for community members.

It should cater as a vocational training place and provide education and activities for learners with disabilities who are not in school, and it should also be a place for continuing adult education and literacy.

It should be a place where persons with disabilities can access computers and improve their computer skills, and it should also provide job readiness skills training, vocational evaluation services, and be a place for sheltered employment for severely disabled persons.

The centre should house social workers from the Ministry of Health and Social Services as well as the Ministry of Gender.

During the two-day session, Nekwaya continually re-iterated the importance of implementing the social model, which encourages social integration of disabled people into society in order to prevent isolation and seclusion.