Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo, has called on government to endeavour to provide persons with disability (PWD) the resources and opportunities to contribute their quotas to national development.
He said, “Our brains are no better and no less than what is also with them and if we give them the opportunity, they are able to prove their sense of humanity.”
The NMC Chairman was speaking at the maiden Ashanti Regional Ghana Journalists Association (GJA)’s awards ceremony in appreciation of a partially blind journalist, Ivan Heathcote Fumador, who grabbed the highest number of awards in Agriculture, Environmental Sanitation and Hygiene Reporting.
The journalist also swept runners up certificate awards in eight other categories, Education, Human Rights (Women, Children, Rural Reporting and Science and Technology, Small and Medium Scale Enterprise, Business and Finance, and two awards in broadcast features in radio.
He received a special GJA award and citation for standing out as a visually impaired journalist bracing the odds to stand out in the profession.
According to the NMC Chairman, “it is a clear demonstration that physical disability is not intellectual inability. This must be a motivation to every one of us, such that when we see people who are disabled, we will not make a laughing stock of them.”
Mr Boadu-Ayeboafo, who was chairman of the ceremony, bemoaned unprofessionalism among journalists and charged them to guard against the image of the profession as journalism assumes a pivotal role in the governance and development of the country.
He asked journalists to contribute to the development of the country by safeguarding the existing peaceful atmosphere and charged radio stations and their show hosts to endeavour to engage experts on issues instead of the usual political activists during discussions.
Mr Boadu-Ayeboafo further tasked the media to join to promote environmental sanitation by educating the public on the dangers of indiscriminate disposal of waste among others.
President of the GJA, Mr Roland Affail Monney, was full of praise for the regional executive for a successful awards ceremony adding that the 70th anniversary of the Association would be decentralised to the regions to afford members based outside Accra to be part of the celebration.
Mr Kingsley E. Hope, chairman of the regional association, earlier on noted that the stories entered “are oxygen of civilisation and the elixir of sanity and wisdom,” an indication of the wealth of knowledge of practitioners in the region.
Touching on the theme of the ceremony, “The media’s mandate in fostering sustainable environmental sanitation,” Mr Hope called on authorities to implement the laws on environmental sanitation and urged journalists to intensify the campaign against indiscriminate waste disposal for the betterment of the country.
In all 22 journalists with only one female were recognised in the awards ceremony with the Multimedia’s Prince Appiah emerging the overall best.
FROM KINGSLEY E. HOPE, KUMASI
