THE eighth staging of the Jamaica Inclusive Education Conference and Accessibility Exposition will open today at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James.

The four-day event is being staged by the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD) in partnership with the Nathan Ebanks Foundation, a local non-profit organisation, which provides support to children with disabilities.

Executive Director of the JCPD Christine Hendricks said the decision to partner with the Foundation came out of last year’s US Embassy-sponsored International Visitor Leadership Project (IVLP), where a five-member delegation from Jamaica travelled to the United States to learn best practices in disability policy.

“We are having an inclusive education conference, so we partnered with them to flesh out what inclusion means for Jamaica in the different spheres, not only in education but inclusion in employment, the environment, transportation and other areas,” she said.

Hendricks said the conference is important as, coming out of a recent Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) survey, there is an obvious need for more awareness of disability issues in Jamaica and to establish networks with similar institutions.

“After doing the study earlier this year, we realised that the level of knowledge of disability needed to be raised. Therefore, the conference is aimed at raising public awareness through social and economic inclusion of persons with disabilities and also promote and stimulate individual, community, private and public sector and national action on disability matters,” she noted.

The conference is targeted at leaders from across the country, including policymakers, child-care and protection workers, teachers, social workers, development officers, school and business leaders as well as social service providers, faith-based organisations and non-governmental organisations.

Day one of the conference will take the form of a round- table discussion to focus on the inclusion framework, while on the other days there will be an accessibility exposition where information will be shared for persons to know where goods and services for persons with disabilities (PWDs) are available.