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Politics of Monday, 19 November 2012

Source: theodore m. k. viwotor

Alem Mumuni To Monitor 2012 Elections

Reigning African C2 Paracycling Champion, Alem Mumuni, has been selected among volunteers to monitor this year’s Presidential and Parliamentary election under the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) programme.

Mumuni, who was actively involved in a similar activity in 2008 at Darkumah where he resides, is one of the very few Persons With Disability (PWDs) observing the elections and whose reports would be factored into the overall rating of the elections.

He would be doing the monitoring at Darkuman in the Ablekuma North Constituency of the Greater Accra region.

Alem Mumuni participated in this Paralympic Games in London where he represented Ghana and Africa in C2 category of the Paracycling competition. His bid to make an impact at the games as one of the only two Africans in this sport was hindered by ill-health, thereby denying him of a medal after the first heats. As a result he could not make it to the medal table; for him, the games are not about medals but an attempt to change wrong perceptions about PWDs.

Alem would soon launch his Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Alem Foundation, which seeks to offer educational opportunities to the less privileged, vulnerable children, as well as, creating avenues for PWDs in the remotest parts of the country. The Foundation is in the process of setting up a school at Garu for the less privileged and would later be assisting other small scale farmers to expand their farms through irrigation, among others. He is supporting some of the children in various ways.

He is currently in his hometown, Garu where he is meeting opinion leaders on the need for PWDs, children and other under-privileged to be educated and included in the overall development of the communities and the nation as a whole.

He has featured on Quality FM where he appealed to residents of the area to educate their children no matter their physical conditions. He observed that PWDs were often excluded from important human activities and lamented that disabled children were not sent to school.

He expressed hope that the educational facility, when built would change the fortunes of many children in the area and other surrounding communities. He appealed to corporate bodies, philanthropists and individuals to support his foundation to bring hope to the less fortunate in society.