Regional Training Centre being established for young people with disabilities

Plans for a Regional Training Centre for young people with disabilities moved a step forward today with the signing of an agreement by the implementing parties.

CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon. Carl Greenidge, and Cuba’s Ambassador to Guyana H.E. Julio Cesar Gonsalez Marchante signed a Tripartite Cooperation and Technical Assistance Agreement at a Ceremony held at the CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana.  The Agreement will lead to the establishment of a  “Regional Training Centre for Development and Stimulation of Children, Adolescents and Young People with Special Educational Needs Associated with Disabilities.”

Guyana will host the Regional Centre which will use Cuba’s extensive experience to assist CARICOM Member States to meet the special education needs associated with disabilities.

The project came out of a proposal at the fifth CARICOM-Cuba Summit in 2014, that Cuba would cooperate with CARICOM to create a Training Centre for the Treatment of Physical Disabilities to assist physically challenged children and youths.  That CARICOM-Cuba summit came a year after a high-level Ministerial meeting in Haiti in 2013 where the Petionville Declaration recommended specific national and regional actions to address  the needs of People with Disabilities.

The CARICOM Secretary-General in his remarks at the signing ceremony said:

“This project emphasises the interest of all parties to address a very important social and humanitarian challenge facing the Region.  It aims to use Cuba’s extensive experience in this area to assist CARICOM Member States in improving the lives of a vulnerable sector of our population”

Read the Secretary-General’s full remarks: sg_-mou_signing_statement