Dear Colleagues, Members and Partners
African Union of the Blind (AFUB) and its wider membership reflects on the experiences and challenges for the previous year 2020. In this edition, AFUB, its members and stakeholders will identify strategies of surviving alongside the COVID-19 pandemic and prioritise the ratifications of the protocol on human and people’s rights on the rights of persons with disabilities in Africa, the Marrakesh treaty implementation and our inclusion in fighting COVID 19 pandemic together with other civil society players around the world.
Due to insufficient information on partially blinded persons, adequate and effective measures have not been fully adopted by African members states to ensure that blind and partially sighted persons exercise their full rights and dignity on an equal basis with others to matters related to health care education and livelihoods inclusion to all programs and projects being implemented on the African continent.
AFUB thematic areas, throughout the year 2021, will mobilize resources, advocate for inclusive policies and promote the theory of community practice as a rights-based model in order to engage public and political will to bring about change. Various challenges disrupted the way people live including blind and partially sighted persons in Africa, some of the noted immediate effect were based on their movement, access to healthcare, causing significant loss of lives.
AFUB and its members expects the African Union and its member states’ response to Covid-19 to promote universal access to health care for all groups of people inclusive of blind and partial sighted persons. Furthermore, AFUB and its members call upon African governments to put in place models of health delivery and funding for health, as well as wider issues around equitable healthcare which are disability friendly. This year AFUB will work with its members to strategically influence state and non state actors on inclusion and hereby encourage all our national members to be active at local level and share their innovation on tackling the matter with the AFUB secretariat for wider dissemination and sharing.
Your resilience to the pandemic and other social forces is very much appreciated. Stay safe, mask up, keeping your distance and practising good hygiene at all times.
Mr. Ishmael Zhou
AFUB PRESIDENT
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