To mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 03, 2023, the National Secretariat for Persons with Disabilities (NSPD), operating under the Ministry of Social Empowerment, organized a program called EMPO 2023 as a two-day national program in two steps.
As its first step, the program on the introduction of "Disabled Community Inclusive Tourism" to Sri Lanka was successfully held on the 1st of December 2023 at the 7th Floor Auditorium, Smart Building, Battaramulla.
As the chief guest Honorable Dr. Wijayadasa Rajapaksa, Minister of Justice and as the keynote speaker Mrs. AZUSA KUBOTHA, Permanent Representative of UNDP to the United Nations participated for this purpose. In order to achieve the country's development goals, methods should be prepared to actively include people with disabilities and the accessibility for those disabled people are the main barrier and which should be improved, thereby improving local and foreign travel opportunities for tourism, which is one of the main sustainable development goals of the country and when introducing the concept of tourism that includes the disabled community and introducing a new commercial objective for the future tourism industry in Sri Lanka was discussed in this program.
In connection with this, the required new base will be set up to implement the new program to remove the main obstacles to protect the rights of the disabled community such as transportation facilities, cities that can be visited, buildings with access facilities, religious, cultural, recreational destinations and other access facilities
The State Minister of Social Empowerment stated that the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will be the main task in the coming year and Hon. Minister further stated that work will be done at the earliest to pass the Disability Act. Honorable Dr. Wijayadasa Rajapaksa, who participated in the event as the chief guest, explained more about the rights and legal protection of the disabled community as well as the current legal problems.
