By Beni Bamusi

Thyolo, March 26, Mana: Thyolo District Social Welfare Office has hailed SPARK Disability Inclusive for Rural Transformation Programme for imparting skills and business knowledge to people with disabilities to uplift their lives and   help them be self-reliant.

District Social Welfare Officer, Tobias Milanzi said this on Monday when International Labour Organization and the district team toured some of the traditional authorities in the district to appreciate SPARK programme activities.

"Since the introduction of the programme in 2022, people with disabilities have been empowered and most of them have changed into farming and other activities.

"People with disabilities have been provided with various skills such that the skills helped them to improve their living standards," said Milanzi.

He also asked the programme implementers to extend it to other T/A's to enable more people with disabilities acquire business knowledge and skills to become economically self-reliant.

SPARK Disability Inclusion Facilitator Hazewell Pilato who is responsible for traditional authority, Chimaliro and Kapichi, said since the introduction of SPARK programme, people with disabilities realized that “disability is not inability,”

“As SPARK, we work hand in hand with TRADE to ensure inclusion of people with disabilities in dairy value chain. We went to milk bulk groups and make people with disabilities get involved in dairy farming such that we made sure that they are provided with milk cow here in Chimaliro” he said.

Eviness Daniel who takes care of her uncle, a person with disability said the uncle got a dairy cow and he was able to provide for his family.

“SPARK provided us with guidance up to the extent that we secured a dairy cow and now we are able to buy fertilizer after selling milk and meat whereas the dung is used for manure which makes us to harvest more maize.” she said.

Daniel who spoke on behalf of her uncle, pleaded for more financial support saying the dairy farming did not give much needed gains because their cow fail to produce enough milk for sale.

“I wish we could have access to adequate capital to make the dairy farming more productive,” added Daniel.

SPARK programme operates in six TAs and reaches out to 168 households with people with disabilities.