by Alan Jacques
alan@limerickpost.ie
A CAMPAIGN aiming to kickstart a national conversation on disability is offering 100 Limerick people the chance to participate in a free training initiative.
As part of a nationwide awareness campaign, social enterprise Kanchi has launched ‘Kanchi 500’ an initiative to provide free disability awareness training to 500 people across the country between December 2 and 6 to coincide with the International Day of Persons With Disabilities on December 3.
The campaign, entitled ‘Let’s Start The Conversation’, will see a free training initiative hosted at Dell in Raheen Business Park on Thursday December 5. The training has been designed to be relevant for all members of the public.
Commenting on the launch Kanchi Network Manager, Nikki Hegarty said; “We often find that stigma and lack of confidence in discussing disability are some of the biggest barriers to inclusion.”
“Through our training we aim to remove that fear of ‘causing offence’ or ‘saying the wrong thing’ that prevents many of us from talking about disability or even from talking to people with disabilities. Given that almost one in five of us has a disability, it’s so important that we get more comfortable talking about it,” said Nikki.
Kanchi wants to encourage businesses to up-skill their employees and also welcomes members of the public interested in finding out more about disability. For example, volunteers who may work with people with disabilities in their role, or someone that might want to be more confident in talking about disability. Anyone that has ever had a question or concern about the language of disability is welcome to attend. The course is free, but registration is required. Details can be found at www.kanchinetwork.com via the Kanchi500 page.
