Mr Seth Oteng, the Executive Director of Youth Bridge Foundation (YBF), has commended the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for taken the initiative to transcribe its party manifestoes into Braille format.
The format has also been integrated into sign language in the campaign launch of the NDC.
Mr Oteng in an interview with Ghana News Agency called on other political parties to follow suit. He told the GNA that in 2015, YBF with funding from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) started the implementation of an intervention titled: “Securing the future of young people in Ghana through improved Juvenile Justice Administration”.“YBF in consultation with some members of the visually impaired community produced the Braille and daisy versions of the Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560) and Juvenile Justice Act 2003 (Act 653).
This was an intervention to promote access to justice for juveniles and Persons with Disabilities especially the visually impaired in Ghana,” he said.Mr Oteng noted that in pursuit of this, YBF made a call on the government to consider the production of other policy documents into Braille and daisy format to make it easily accessible to the visually and hearing impaired persons in the country.
Taking note of the initiatives by the various political parties contesting the December 7 elections, Mr Oteng commended OSIWA for being the pace setters of the laudable initiative.
Going forward, the Executive Director of YBF has challenged other political parties and the to-be-elected government to sustain the initiative by producing more of the Braille and daisy formats of national policy documents to help include the visually impaired youth in national policies.
YBF is a youth focused organisation set up to create supportive platforms to challenge the creativity of the youth, and to make available critical information and resources needed for total development of the youth.