Excerpt from the Jamaica Observer column published on Monday, February 21, 2022
By Jean Lowrie-Chin
We celebrate Jamaicans with Jamaicans living with disabilities, the long hard road to getting the Disabilities Act finally implemented. When we consider the talented and well-educated people with disabilities who are contributing to our national development, we look forward to the review of hiring policies by human resources managers in both the private and public sectors. When there is inclusivity, organisations blossom as their staff members collaborate and develop emotional quotient (EQ) now acknowledged as being on par with intelligence quotient (IQ).
Last year the Digicel Jamaica Foundation created a series of videos on Jamaican companies who hire persons with special needs. We always think of our Paralympics Gold Medalist Alphanso Cunningham in the context of sports, but we saw that he is a diligent employee at the Sir John Golding Centre’s prosthetics operations. We learned in a Jamaica Observer feature by Josmar Scott, that Digicel’s human resource executive Daveanna-Kay Reid who uses a wheelchair started as a ‘POWER intern’ with the company seven years ago. The company belongs to the ‘Valuable 500’ group of companies worldwide who practice the ‘Power Intern Programme’. Daveanna-Kay oversaw the retrofitting of the Digicel global headquarters in downtown Kingston to accommodate people with special needs.
Kudos to Dr Floyd Morris, Jamaica’s first blind senator and Head of the UWI Centre for Disabilities Studies, Dr Christine Hendricks, Executive Director of the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD) and UNICEF, who have advocated assiduously for the Disabilities Act. UNICEF supported in the islandwide registration of persons with disabilities (PWDs), which gives them access to a range of helpful benefits accessible through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.
The JCPD, has cited the main objective of the Disabilities Act as “encouraging all Jamaicans to recognise and accept the principle that PWDs have the same fundamental rights as any other person.”
Jamaica Highlights 