BY ALFRED PAGEPITU
More than 10 persons living with disabilities in Honiara have for the first time participated in an inclusive three days workshop which ended on Friday.
This workshop on media and Disability Inclusion was held at the SIBC conference room and featured the attendance of by representatives of people living with disabilities, those from Disaster Management organisations, Media and Humanitarian emergency response stakeholders in the Solomon Islands.
It was organized and funded by Oxfam in the Solomon Islands in partnership with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation International Development (ABC ID).
Workshop trainer was Dorothy Wickham and staff of Oxam who conducted a workshop on disaster preparedness.
Trainer, Ms Wickham highlighted the Oxfam AHP Disaster Ready plan aims to promote timely, accurate, inclusive disaster messaging by understanding the communication needs of people with disabilities and improving linkages and interactions between disabled persons’ organisations, media, government and other local stakeholders.
She said the goal of the knowledge-sharing workshop is to allow stakeholders to understand each other’s experience, challenges/ constraints, priorities, and needs in disaster reporting, response, and resilience.
Wickham thanked the media, stakeholders participated in the workshop, representatives from the World Vision, Red Cross, the Oxfam in Solomon Islands in partnership with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation International Development (ABC ID) and participants.
“I would like to thank all of you who attended and our core funders who supported this workshop.
“We now understand disaster reporting, understanding disability inclusive messaging, establishing media guidelines and principles and determining best practice terminology for disability-inclusive reporting.
“This training was successful as participants hear direct issues affecting people living with disabilities on their needs and wants in disaster scenarios.
“As facilitator of this workshop on disaster reporting for people with disabilities, I would like to thank Mr Alex from the Solomon Islands Meteorological Service for being part of this workshop, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) International Development for funding and Oxfam for hosting.
“I have learnt a lot from these amazing Solomon Islanders,” Wickham summed up.
