Can Persons with Disabilities Access Safe Working Space? A Message to Employers

In the current world and market trend, access to employment is extremely cumbersome as a result of stereotypes and misconception of what people with disabilities can't do. This has led introduction of quotas (affirmative actions) in different laws (like article 27 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) to enable qualified persons with disabilities to get employed.

Advocacy, lobbying and awareness has enabled qualified persons with disabilities to qualify for job markets, for the few people with disabilities who are employed, access to safe work place remains an issue that works against inclusion and embracing of diversity.

As a person with disability some of the things that might prevent you to being included at work place includes:
a) Battling negative employers attitudes, for instance employers making it seem like an employee with disability wasn't qualified for that job.
b) Secondly having to disclose your personal or medical condition to all employees in order to get reasonable accommodation or adjustment hence limiting your privacy.
c) Being a victim of psychological abuse for instance being yelled at in the presence of your colleagues, or a reprimanding message being copied to all your colleagues, your duties and responsibilities being delegated without your consent and the employer only reacting to mistakes and not success.
d) Having to request what is obvious like making environment accessible.
e) Your voice being diminished and your professional ideas not being welcome.
f) Being left out during crucial functions for instance finding yourself to be the only persons with disability left in the office while all your colleagues are out to launch a product or to celebrate an international day that relates to your work.
g) Being underestimated; for instance being allocated minor roles that are not on your job description.

Such factors do not only hinder inclusion but they enhance stigma against persons with disabilities; (and this is considered be discrimination on basis of disability).

Even worse, such toxic working conditions might lead to persons with disabilities acquiring multiple disabilities that are secondary to what they already have. Such can include depression, anxiety, self hate etc.

My message to the employers and all leaders is that employment for persons with disabilities goes beyond fulfilling the quotas and the public relations of showing how many people with disabilities you've employed but making the environment safe enough for them to contribute towards their growth and the growth of your organisation. Inherent dignity of persons with disabilities shouldn't be diminished at work place.

Cheers!!!

International Wheelchair Day

First March each year the world commemorates international wheelchair day and this years theme is 'My Wheelchair my Right to Inclusion'. 

Wheelchair is a basic assistive device that supports inclusion and independence of persons with disabilities in their communities as it enables them to participate in activities of daily living. However, in most nations people with disabilities face a number of issues in accessing them, These factors include; the devices being unavailable locally, very high cost that leaves most people to crawl (hence lowering their dignity) and the little that are available locally are of poor quality that aren't fit for the terrain or specifically tailored for individual need and environment hence making persons with disabilities to develop secondary disabilities from the poorly manufactured ones.

Secondly, the infrastructural sector does not embrace the universal design (inclusive design) which is supposed to provide means of embracing everyone in our society in accessing environments and building that are inherently accessible.

This blog advocates for a society that respects persons with disabilities through:

1. Development of policies (Government) that promote persons with disabilities accessing wheelchairs and other assistive devices that are available locally, affordable, acceptable and of good quality.
2. Professionals in the architectural field to embrace universal design in order to facilitate inclusion and independence of persons with disabilities.
3. And wheelchair manufacturers to produce quality wheelchairs that are tailored for individual persons with disabilities and their environment.

Cheers!!!

 

Reflection on Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Workshop

20th to 23rd of August 2018 was an exciting week, I participated in a workshop for indigenous persons with disabilities in Bomet Kenya as a co facilitator. The workshop was organized by the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network (IPWDN), the Narok South Disability Network and International Disability Alliance (IDA).

The aim of the workshop was to impact knowledge on Indigenous leaders with disabilities in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people (UNDRIP) and Agenda 2030.

My Reflection:

Indigenous persons with disabilities being at the grass root level of the community face multidimensional barriers and sharp effects are on children and women with disabilities from these communities. Some of the barriers include:

1. Stigma and discrimination
2. Negative cultural practices like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
3. Access to education
4. Access to health
5. Not being counted during census due to nomadic life
6. Women with disabilities in the communities being compared to women without disabilities
7. Lack of national registration: like national identity card

Constitution of Kenya, Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Declaration on the Rights of persons with disabilities offer a clear legal framework that can support indigenous persons with disabilities in enjoying their rights on equal basis with others. Moreover, people from this communities need more developmental support from the government and civil society organizations without destroying or diluting their cultural identity.

Cheers!

Depression Common Cause of Suicide

Grace Wanjiku Matu owner of Mawingu Production (YouTube channel) is a youth with spina bifida who is involved in art for entertainment and educating the world.

She recently wrote a Poem entitled 99 problems that aims on raising awareness on depression a type  psychosocial disability that is overlooked... yet it is a common cause of barriers like exclusion and suicide among our communities. She describes depression in a poetic way, affirms that it is treatable and calls out for people to reach out!

I've got 99 problems                                                     

And happiness is one of them 

I've been feeling down lately 

But not the usual down

It goes beyond sadness and hurt

To a pit of loneliness and hopelessness

It's darkness really.....

Darkness that you somehow got yourself into

But you can't get out

It was entrance only but not exit

My energy plummeted to the floor 

My Confidence is non-existent

But I have this façade that I have to keep up

See I've heard it before, even done it before

Thinking I could give you a glance to my world

In the hope you'll be my savior

But you turn your back with word like 

Snap out of it!

You're such a Drama Queen!

It takes everything in me 

To smile and to be normal

But sometimes I have nothing at all

So I stay away disconnect from you and your plans

I have no energy to dance, to work 

I have got no energy for life

I've got 99 problems and silence is one of them

I hate the name calling

I hate the whispers

The weird look from my peripheral vision

I don't want to be weak

As she blatantly put it

I just want to be me 

But I don't know how to anymore

How you have care for a broken leg or an infected wound

But I have none for my broken heart and infected mind

I have no idea

I will silently drown my pillow with tears

Silently fight a battle I'm loosing 

Until I find the courage to work with a permanent Solution

Let's support Grace by subscribing to her You Tube channel (Mawingu Production) and remember that all disabilities are not visible let's reach out!.

Cheers!

Is Termination of Spina Bifida Pregnacies Right?

In our current world, termination (abortion) of pregnancies with spina bifida is becoming a norm as parents are lured into it right after prenatal tests. In most cases this happens after medical professionals present one side of the coin that predicts challenges of lifelong care for children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus. In some cases parents are denied the chance of making their own decision independently.

Some countries have gone to an extent of legalizing this process. However, NO ONE can predict the quality of life that an individual with spina bifida and hydrocephalus can have. This fact therefore leaves a space for children with spina bifida to live and be who they are meant to be.

Abortion of pregnancies on basis of disability like spina bifida and down syndrome eliminates the aspect of diversity in our world, this is also a way of hiding issues instead of solving them. Existence of people with spina bifida and other disabilities provides creativity and innovation.

International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus has gathered a number of personal experiences of people with spina bifida and hydrocephalus and all the stories have one thing in common: Love for life

PS: Spina bifida is defect of the spinal cord that occurs a few days after conception

Life is divine!

Cheers.