In collaboration with the Family Department, the Seychelles Vulnerability Assessment Committee (SezVAC) of the Disaster Risk Management Division (DRMD) hosted a workshop, Tuesday 18th February 2025, at the L’Escale Resort to identify existing data and address data gaps in relation to people with disabilities.
During this workshop, participating stakeholders presented the available statistics on disability types, and the geographic distribution recorded at a national and district level. Moreover, discussion identified that data is available, but, scattered across several entities. Therefore, this makes it difficult to compile and create a unified database.
Other points of discussion raised were employment opportunities and regulations institutionalised by the Government to assist people with disabilities, as well as the accessibility of public facilities for those who are considered to be wheelchair bound or with limited mobility. This highlight the need to enforce the implementation of policies and regulations to ensure their inclusivity into the community.
Moving forward, it was collectively agreed that government entities and NGOs must collaborate and share their respective data for the creation of a harmonised database of all respective information. This database will be utilised by SezVAC and DRMD in disaster preparedness and emergency response.
