Following a recent call by software engineer Farida Bedwei’s at the African Allied Healthcare Disability Summit for an end to empty “talkshops,” celebrated disability advocate Madam Valeria Adzo Adzatia has exposed deep-seated tokenism within state institutions, revealing how employed disability officers are systematically sidelined and denied meaningful work.
Madam Adzatia, the Founder of Smiles of Hope – an NGO dedicated to amputee welfare, and the recent winner of the prestigious JoyFM Impact Makers 2026 Award, made the revelations in a public reflection responding to Bedwei’s keynote address.
Highlighting how state-level inclusion often exists solely on paper, the award-winning advocate recounted the experience of a qualified disability officer employed within a government institution who was systematically denied administrative responsibilities.
“Every morning, he would dress up, go to work, and simply sit – not because there was no work to be done, but because no one involved him,” Madam Adzatia disclosed. “When he requested assignments, he was told not to worry himself and that others would handle it. He was not trusted to contribute; he simply occupied a seat.”
Ironically, she revealed, newly arrived National Service personnel were routinely assigned greater administrative responsibilities than the officer specifically employed to champion disability inclusion within the state facility.
Frustrated by the institutional paralysis and refusal to utilise his expertise, the officer eventually resigned to join the non-governmental sector.
The JoyFM Impact Maker winner argued that this individual experience mirrors a pervasive culture across both public and corporate sectors in Ghana, where institutions establish disability desks and appoint coordinators merely to fulfill public relations quotas.
“We have become very good at talking about disability inclusion,” Madam Adzatia noted. “We organise conferences, summits, workshops, and panel discussions. We produce reports, recommendations, and beautiful speeches… But after the speeches end and the cameras are packed away, what really changes?”
She emphasised that true inclusion cannot be measured by the number of summits hosted or policy documents drafted, but by whether persons with disabilities (PWDs) are genuinely permitted to lead, influence executive decisions, and be recognised for their professional skills rather than their impairments.
Echoing Bedwei’s frustration over unproductive seminars, Madam Adzatia challenged civil society, state actors, and development partners to start demanding concrete metrics following major national dialogues.
She outlined four critical questions that duty-bearers must answer moving forward:
1. What has tangibly changed since the last disability summit?
2. Which specific recommendations have been implemented into law or workplace policy?
3. How many lives have demonstrably improved as a result of these discussions?
4. Who is being held accountable for turning conference declarations into action?
“Disability inclusion cannot remain a series of conversations; it must become a series of actions,” Madam Adzatia concluded. “Inclusion is not measured by the promises we make. It is measured by the opportunities we create, the decisions we share, and the lives we transform.”
SOURCE: DisabilityNewsGH.com
