The City of Cape Town, in recognition of Disability Month, has committed to fostering closer working relations with people with disabilities and associated organisations/stakeholders. The Urban Management Directorate through its Area Economic Development (AED) is focused on supporting initiatives and programmes that intend to grow entrepreneurship and small business among people with disabilities.
November is recognised as Disability Month in South Africa and 3 November 2020 was celebrated as National Disability Day.
On Friday, 20 November 2020, the City of Cape Town, in collaboration with the national department of Women, Youth and People with Disability, the national department of Small Business Development, the Western Cape Government’s Department of Economic Development and various stakeholders, hosted a Disability Entrepreneurship Seminar with the theme, ‘Promoting, Encouraging, Supporting Entrepreneurs with Disability’.
The primary focus of the seminar is to critically evaluate the government services that entrepreneurs with disabilities can access, communicate challenges and constraints experienced in accessing these services and committing to solutions that can benefit entrepreneurs with disabilities.
Addressing the seminar, the Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Management, Alderman Grant Twigg once again reiterated the City’s commitment to finding effective ways of providing solid and sustainable support to entrepreneurs with disabilities.
‘The City believes that economic participation is the most powerful means of empowering people with disabilities. In this regard, the Urban Management Directorate seeks to promote inclusiveness and access for entrepreneurs with disabilities to programmes and incentives.
‘We cannot have an inclusive city if we don’t address the needs of all our residents, including the needs of our residents with disabilities. Entrepreneurs with disabilities face great disadvantages arising from discrimination on the basis of their disability. They are often marginalised, and denied opportunities. A majority of entrepreneurs with disabilities operate their businesses under adverse conditions. Not only do they encounter difficulties in finding working premises, markets for their products and access to finance, but they also have limited access to training in entrepreneurship skills and management.
‘They have very limited marketable skills and training. Many are not targeted for training and are constrained by accessibility issues (such as lack of ramps, sign language interpretation or information in accessible formats) from participating in training, to accessing business development services. This seminar should not just be a talk shop and box-ticking exercise, but must come up with implementable short, medium and long term solutions to the challenges faced by entrepreneurs with disabilities. We want to thank everyone who participated in today’s seminar for their meaningful contribution so that, along with the various stakeholders, we can all work together towards implementable solutions that will empower and equip entrepreneurs to grow their businesses,’ said Alderman Twigg