GOVERNMENT has appealed to people living with disabilities to work in collaboration with their able-bodied counterparts to overcome challenges in their everyday lives.

Community Development, Mother and Child Health Deputy Minister, Dorothy Kazunga urged differently-abled people to interact more with other people as isolating themselves would worsen their challenges.

Ms Kazunga appealed to the physically-challenged to engage in various programmes being run by her ministry so that they could access the K1 billion funds for them.

The deputy minister was speaking during the International Day of Persons with Disabilities in Lusaka yesterday.

"Women are more likely to access funds and that means they should form clubs and associations so that they can be assisted with resources to start and improve their small-scale businesses to earn income," she said.

Ms Kazunga said people living with disabilities should come up with viable business projects to enable them to access the K1 billion secured for them by the Government.

"The disabled should get involved and not isolate themselves as this will not curb the hardships of having unequal access to education, employment, health care, transportation, political participation or even justice," she said.

She said the ministry was faced with a challenge of non-payment of application fees for parties that applied for resources.

He urged them to make the payments for application forms so that the process was not prolonged.

She said the Government was committed to ensuring that persons with disabilities were included in national development and would continue showing commitment to their welfare.

Zambia National Association of Disabled Women executive director, Josephine Shinaka applauded the Government for allocating money towards disabled-initiated projects.

She encouraged the able-bodied people to move on the same pace as those that were differently-abled.