SPANISH TOWN, St Catherine – Thousands of disabled persons who were targeted to receive social, medical, education and training assistance from the 3 D Projects have been severely affected by the curtailment of services by the charity.

The organisation, which operates from national headquarters at 14 Monk Street in Spanish Town, St Catherine, said it was unable to attract the $26 million needed to fund its annual operational budget in the five parishes in which it is established.

The project said it had expected to raise about $8.5 million, or 40 per cent of its budget through government subventions from the ministries of education, labour and social security, as well as from the Christoffel Blinden Mission of Germany. But it would still have to raise the remainder on its own which the administrators said was “an impossible task “, warning that some of its projects would have to be curtailed to keep the agency from closing.

Managing director of 3 D Projects Gerlin Bean said the guaranteed $8.5 million was woefully inadequate to maintain staff and meet operational costs, Bean complained that because of the shortfall, 3 D was unable to complete its social programmes benefiting over 1,000 families and 2,000 children suffering with various disabilities in St Catherine, Manchester, St Thomas, St Mary and Portland.

“It is for this reason that our agency is unable to establish new offices such as in Western Jamaica, upgrade existing centres and expand the programme to other challenged persons,” she said.

Dedicated to the Development of persons with Disability (hence 3D), the 22-year-old agency provides community based rehabilitation services to disabled persons requiring home training programmes, counselling, education, job placement and employment development. It operates a stroke rehabilitation programme, an inclusive education programme to place children with disability in regular schools, a pre-school unit for kids with disability and an adaptive aid workshop to help disabled persons to function better.

Bean said that while the agency was losing staff because of low pay and now owed the finance ministry $3 million in unpaid statutory deductions, # D needed to employ a speech therapist, an education psychologist, three physiotherapist, three medical doctors, a number of visiting nurses, 20 community rehabilitation workers and a deputy director. It also needed a mobile clinic.

On the bright side, Bean disclosed that the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica had purchased an old building at 29 Monk Street, for $3.5 million, to expand the 3 D project. And the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) would be spending $7 million to refurbish the building.