The Centre for Enterprise Development (CED) together with the National Disability Council (NDC) held their 4th graduation ceremony of the Entrepreneurship Training Programme for people with disabilities in Windhoek on Monday.
Under the theme ‘Take action and implement the disabilities monitoring report’, the ceremony saw the graduation of 15 entrepreneurship participants.
In his welcoming remarks, Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Administration and Finance, Gert Günzel, said over the years, NUST has collaborated with various stakeholders in making its programmes relevant and effective to the 21st century.
“The event we are witnessing today marks the 4th graduation ceremony in entrepreneurship training with 59 graduates to date,” said Günzel.
He said NUST is committing itself to continue providing capacity-building interventions to local communities so that the informal industry can eventually move to the formal stream through the CED.
Speaking at the same event, Deputy Minister of Disability Affairs in the Office of the Vice Presidency, Alexia Manombe-Ncube called on captains of industry to invest in the programme in order to fund more disabled students and invest in the graduates’ enterprises.
“I call upon the private sector to provide support and partnership development, be it through mentorship or flagship programmes to see these graduates establish and enhance their enterprises,” she said.
She further encouraged the graduates to be partners with Government to create jobs and contribute to the strengthening of the economic status of Namibia.
According to Manombe-Ncube, the 2016 Namibia Inter-censal Demographic Survey Report indicates that people with disabilities are 4.7 per cent, which quantifies to 108 992 of the total Namibian population. Of these, Kavango West, at 7.6 per cent and Ohangwena with 6.8 per cent are the regions having the highest number of people with disabilities.
The Khomas Region has the lowest number reported at 2.3 per cent.