OAS Participates in Opening of New POETA Center in Peru

The Trust for the Americas, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Banco de Comercio of Peru today signed in Lima in the presence of the OAS Assistant Secretary General, Ambassador Albert R. Ramdin, a collaboration agreement to provide technical and financial resources to support the POETA Program developed in the country since 2005.

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The POETA Program (Partnership in Opportunities for Employment through Technology in the Americas) is an initiative of the Trust for the Americas the objective of which is to provide access and training in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to people with disabilities to improve their education and job opportunities, as well as to participate more actively in the life of the community.

Furthermore, agreements were signed with the Ministry of Women and Social Development, where both institutions made a commitment to support initiatives for people with disabilities in Peru.

During the ceremony, held in the framework of the 40th OAS General Assembly, which begins tomorrow, June 6, in Lima, a new POETA Center was inaugurated, this time in the Peruvian capital, and it will benefit more than 100,000 people with disabilities and their families. This new center joins the already existing ones in the cities of Cuzco, Lambayeque and Comas. The OAS Secretary for External Relations, Ambassador Adam Blackwell, said this new center "will become one of the axes in the politics of disability of Peru's Government."

Currently POETA has a network of 80 centers in twenty-one countries around the continent, among them in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.

The program has allowed for the training and access to technology of around 250,000 people with disabilities, youth at risk, their families and members of the community, "increasing their potential for employment and creating processes of social awareness regarding the right of these people to dignified work and full social inclusion," Ambassador Blackwell said.

Also present at the ceremony were the Peruvian Minister of Labor and Promotion of Employment, Manuela Garcia Cochagne; the Chairman of the National Council for the Integration of People with Disabilities (CONADIS), Guillermo Vega; Fernando Montenegro, Representative of the Inter-American Development Bank; and the Peruvian Congressman Michael Urtecho Medina, member of the POETA Advisory Committee, among others.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org