WORLD DAY OF DISABILITY: INCLUSION MATTERS

All over the world, today is celebrated as the international day of people with disability. The theme this year is “Inclusion matters: access and empowerment of people of all disabilities. Nigeria is a major country in the community of nations. We contribute about one in every five Africans. That is a huge number. So it ripples also into our segment of society that is living with one disability as you call it, it is actually called a challenge, or the other. In real terms millions of Nigerians live with one form of disability. Thousands of others live with multiple challenges.

As a child, I had many introductions to how to live with a person who is living with any form of challenge. My father was blind. One of my duties was to sweep areas assigned to me in the house. Without thinking anything of it I would move furniture around and do my chores. I recall one incident early in my childhood when I was taught about the danger of moving furniture around. A danger because the person that is blind cannot see the furniture has been moved and would bump, or rather crash into it. I was taught that the danger is very real if I do not consider the safety of a person that cannot see. Another lesson I learnt early in life was that buildings need to be accessible by everybody. That lesson was delivered to me one day when a friend of the family came visiting. Being paraplegic, he depended on a wheelchair to move around except when he was driving his adapted car using all hand controls to operate his Peugeot 505. Because there was no adult male around to help lift his wheelchair up the 5 steps into my father’s living room, my dad decided to go outside and stand beside his friend who was sitting in his car and they chatted there for about an hour. Being the good friends they were at the time, that visit should have lasted more like 2 hours. But because access was an issue they had to keep it short.
As a nation, we have allowed buildings to be erected, roads and drainages to be constructed totally oblivious to the dangers we have put in the way of our brothers and sisters who are living with various challenges. Lack of standardization in the matter of inclusive development has resulted in our losing immense contributions to our national development.
There is a very interesting parallel between inclusive development and growth of society. Research has proved that when a society takes of her weak and aged, she automatically grows her ability to take care of the rest of her citizens. I guess it’s a sort of courtesy between Mother Nature and us human beings. We take care of her weak and aged and the rest of us get a “pat on the back” by life being a little easier.
The persons living with blindness, the persons who are hard of hearing, the persons who cannot perceive smell, the persons who are all of these. The persons who have any of so many other challenges that you call disability. Each of them is a human being that could make a major contribution to our national life if we practice inclusiveness as a norm not as a misnomer. I am glad that some organizations and corporate bodies are doing so already. Holy Family Church Barnawa converted steps at one point of her building into a ramp. GTBank Plc makes ramps part of her building design policy. Kudos to them all but you can do more. How about printing all your hymnbooks in Braille, or is it your account opening forms that do not encourage independence. How about making sign language translation a standard on all television stations and not only when there is an inauguration ceremony. How about writing captions on all television programs that are broadcast so that a person that is hard of hearing will be able to read the news. Don’t forget already she cannot hear the radio so all your music and programming is just wind to her. She cannot see it. Roads constructed and provided with pedestrian walkways will be a delight to everybody young and old, challenged or not. Buildings provided with access ramps from design inception will be an attraction to everybody and when the designer of that building gets old and is on a wheelchair, he will be able to enter the building in dignity and pride.
Government policies are good if they empower access and empowerment of people of all abilities. But we cannot wait for policies to govern every minuscule aspect of our existence. We must each rise to the occasion and meet the needs. We must individually walk in their shoes and then we can adjust our lives, our environments, our policies and actions. Then and only then will we have a nation that truly provides knowledge for quality life to every citizen. Access and empowerment is the right of every human being, no matter the challenge they were born with or acquired in life. Access and empowerment of all people of all abilities is the only way to develop society. Be it economically, socially, religiously. Be it online or offline. Let’s do it.
andrew
03.12.15
Kaduna