International Day of Disabled Persons on December 3:

STOP stigma against the disabled

By Carol Aloysius

Disability: The word conjures up many meanings to many persons. Yet what hurts and prevents disabled persons from enjoying a normal life to its fullest potential most, is the prejudice and stigma that labels them.

It is prejudice that disables the disabled. Not their disabilities. For whether they are mentally, physically or economically disabled, given skills and training according to his or her specific disability, such persons can be easily reintegrated into society.

Many of them have already done that and are today living with dignity.

Take some examples from our own country.

Leela 47, lost her leg in the Tsunami when a tree buried her under mound of slippery earth in 2004. Today she is an expert seamstress-thanks to a charity organisation that helped put her back on her ‘feet’. The colourful garments she sews are a proud testimony to her creativeness. “The money I earn is enough to buy the basic needs of my family of two children”, she says.

Nirmala 29, is earning money to feed her family of three by supplementing the income of her husband a casual labourer. She sells artificial flowers and curios. A victim of a train accident she lost both her legs. Thanks to the training she received from a state organisation she looks forward to living a future with dignity now then she is able to earn an independent income.

Rukmal 24, still recovering from a bad road accident in which he was seriously injured and lost the use of his arm, is an office clerk training to be an accountant, after the village samithi he belongs to, hired a special tutor to teach him.

Aditha is one of the most gifted dancers in her school. The 15 year teenager, though mentally handicapped and partially blind, has been able to overcome those formidable obstacles to the compassion, understanding and training given to her by her teachers, and an organisation that believes in giving disabled person back their rights to live to their fullest potential.

Common

What do these four persons of disparate age, and gender have in common? Their strength is their strong optimism and high self esteem they have in themselves instilled in them by people who helped them to believe in themselves and their potential despite their handicaps.

Yet the vast majority of society remains insensitive to their needs - regarding them to be trivial and unworthy of much affection. Even our very laws on their behalf are violated much impunity. In addition, many of these laws are either flawed, or lack teeth to ensure they are properly implemented. Look around you and you will see that many disabled persons still don’t have access to public buildings due to the absence of rails and ramps, despite the revision of the law recently to declare that existing buildings should offer reasonable access to them and that no new building should be set up unless it conforms to the new regulation that makes handrails, ramps, toilets, wash rooms.

Again, despite the new law that says there should be special counters/desks to assist disabled persons, how many such counters are there for disabled persons at banks, post offices, even super markets?

Children

Despite, education being compulsory for all under 16 years, hundreds, nay thousands of disabled children still remain outside the formal education system because the majority of normal schools refuse to admit them on the grounds they lack the special facilities to cater to their needs.

The hands on experience of Dr Gopi Kitnasamy, father of a child with Cerebral Palsy underlines this fact when he says, “Cerebral Palsy, which is a condition that affects motor control, is the most common physical disability in children. In Sri Lanka an estimated 40,000 children have this condition. Sadly, just because of their physical disability, they are not allowed to attend normal schools or even special schools for disabled children.

Access to public buildings and play activities are also very limited. What is hurtful is the way people look at them- as persons who are useless to society and unable to do anything. But nothing could be further from the truth. Many of them have normal IQ’s if not better than even normal kids, and will do well in their academic studies if given a little help by trained personnel.”

To fill this gap Dr Kitnasamy a chartered therapist, set up the Cerebral Palsy Lanka Foundation (CPLF) at Rajagiriya which now provides the much needed services for these children such as therapeutic services and education to make them independent and live with dignity.

He also, last month launched Sri Lanka’s first Inclusive park at the Vihara Mahadevi Park to create opportunities to such children to take part in play activities by allowing cerebral palsy and other disabled children to enjoy a swinging experience with the help of the wheel chair.

Mentally ill

Until recently, the rights and welfare of mentally ill persons in this country also received low priority attention for the same reason - that they were both a burden and useless to society.

Even with the introduction of the Mental Disease Act of 1956, mentally ill persons received the lowest priority in the health sector.

However due to the sharp rise of mental disease caused by wars, natural disasters and the constant displacement of people from familiar environments, mental health and the protection of the rights of mentally ill persons is slowly but surely being incorporated into domestic laws.

Wake-up call

On the positive side, the sharp spike in the number of persons living with disabilities across the country has proved to be a wake-up call for policy and decision makers, who are now giving more attention to their welfare and rights. According to Health Ministry sources 10 percent of our population suffer from disabilities and the number would rise to 24.2 percent by 2040.

HIV/AIDS is also widely prevalent despite awareness raising programs by the Health Ministry and vaccines of non government organisations.

As long as this prejudice remains, no matter what interventions are put in place, they are not likely to be as effective as they could otherwise be.

Youth leadership

An encouraging trend now is that many young persons with disabilities are now coming forward to create their own platform to fight stigma and change these traditional attitudes against disabled persons...

The Sri Lanka Foundation for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled (SLFRD) is one example.

Formed with a membership of 65 disabled persons, this voluntary organisation under the Ministry of Social Services comprising young disabled persons has been steadily gaining ground. Its objectives include: finding employment for disabled youth (male and female), protecting their rights, assisting and improving education of disabled students and helping them to stand on their own feet.

One can only hope that these collective efforts by the state and individual organisations will soon make prejudice and stigma against persons disabled for no fault if their own, a thing of the past.

Let’s give them back their rights!