On Wednesday, 19th March 2025, the Executive Director of Inclusive Friends Association, Ms. Grace Jerry led members of the IFA team on an advocacy visit to the House committee chairman on disabilities matters.

The core of this visit was to brief the House chairman on the IFA’s latest innovation, to get his buy-in and input. ED spoke to the accessibility compliance dashboard, its overall importance, and expected outcomes when it is fully launched.

Festus presented the dashboard to the chairman, stating it is going to be a tool for data generation while also boosting the public images of the institutions represented on the dashboard.

In response to the presentation, Hon. Dawodu commended the initiative, stating it is an area he’s been thinking of. He mentioned the Dashboard will be big when fully launched and it will put IFA on the map, emphasizing that with this initiative, when the enactment of the disability certificate takes effect, IFA will be very instrumental in offering professional services to other organizations in conducting accessibility audits and training, which will be a prerequisite for the issuance of a disability compliance certificate, which in turn would be a major requirement for company registration with CAC. According to him, he is already meeting with the management of CAC to fine-tune this.

He requested we write officially to the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities for collaboration while promising to take it up officially with them.

He went further to state that the disability community has to come together to help the commission, reiterating that he will be available anytime to give IFA all necessary support.

His colleague, the house chairman on electoral matters, Hon Adebayo also present, emphasized that it is important we popularize the dashboard.

ED Ms. Grace Jerry notified Hon Dawodu of the dashboard validation meeting that is coming up for which an invitation will be shared, as it is important we get the input of all stakeholders incorporated into the dashboard before its launch.

Hon requested we discuss with his secretary to confirm his availability for both the validation and the launch.

In closing, ED encouraged the chairman to feel free to reach out to IFA when he needs our office to collaborate with him on anything.