HOKO Innovation for Disability Empowerment and Development

an estimated more than 1.3 Bilion people in the world live with a disability, many of them in low- and middle-income countries. Approximately 80% are women and men of working age. As many as 80 percent of all people with disabilities are not born with the disability but acquire it later in life due to illness, malnutrition, accidents or age. While some are successfully employed and fully integrated into society, others face social and environmental barriers to becoming active members of society and holding a job. A person with a disability is capable of leading a productive life if the environment accommodates the person’s needs. A disability does not imply that a person cannot do a job effectively; it might just mean that the person does it in a different way. When given a fair chance to develop skills and the opportunity to access employment, people with disabilities perform just as well as those without. Since my father is blind, I had a dream to create a job for my father, but I couldn’t because I was child, and I didn’t get any chance to achieve my childhood dream. After I joined the University, I thought different ways to implement my early age dream since I couldn’t find a way to create for my father in my sector, so I can create a job for legs disables. My university degree final thesis was on design and development industrial sewing machine Attachment for leg disables. My project recognized by certifying bodies in Ethiopia.