BETTER FOR FUTURE

Mr. Didier Rukundo is a 32 years old nurse at Shyogwe health center. Mr. Didier Rukundo is providing health services to persons with disabilities, after being trained by UPHLS on disability-specific needs, mobility, and orientation. « I am now serving as focal person of people with disabilities and basic eye care services at Shyogwe Health Center since 2014 » stated Mr. Rukundo.
"Through this training, I changed my attitudes and mindset towards people with disabilities where I used to treat people with disabilities coming at health center as other people without disabilities. I did not know that they have special needs and to understand this was too difficult for me but this training helped me to be aware of disability and specific needs and even to be able to communicate with hearing impairment.
After this training, I tried my best to provide inclusive services, sharing with my colleagues how to serve people with disabilities in different categories and right terminologies to refer to persons with disabilities and I hanged them on the walls in different rooms including : boardroom, consultation rooms and waiting room.
I learned so much and gained a lot of understanding. However it made me feel a little guilty about the way we used to treat people with disabilities when they came to us for help. I keep sharing my knowledge and encouraging my fellow staff members here on how we should treat people with disabilities. As a result of our changed attitudes, in designing a 2019 fiscal year budget we took disability inclusion into considerations and we shall have a disability friendly budget as a result of training."