The Kisii County government has met the five percent threshold in employing people with disability, deputy governor Joash Maangi has said.
Maangi said people with disabilities were an integral part of the county population and must be involved in developing the county.
Maangi was speaking on Thursday at Gusii Stadium where he joined hundreds of the people with special needs drawn from all the 45 wards of the county during this year’s World Disability Day.
Deputy governor said that the county government is doing everything to recognise the people with disabilities.
“When people are empowered, they get well prepared to take opportunities regardless of their physical or visual impairments,” he said.
The deputy governor said the county government last year sponsored 450 people with disabilities for capacity workshop in Mombasa while 90 were taken for a benchmarking tour on entrepreneurship.
“We have also sponsored athletics from local to national level and we are very proud of our very own athlete, Wilson Ongworu who represented the county at the Standard Charted Marathon and won a trophy,” he said.
Mr Maangi further urged people living with disabilities to go for public forums and participate so that they give opinions and raise issues that affect them.
“We are doing our best together with the National Government to ensure that cities are accessible to all people especially the disabled and improve disability data and statistics across the county and the country at large” he said.
The deputy governor gave out 13 wheel chairs to the physically challenged and 250 protective gears including long sleeved t-shirts and caps to people with albinism.