Disability is a long term physical or mental ‘impairment’ that substantially limits one or more life activity of a person. One billion persons with disabilities in the world face physical, social, economic and attitudinal barriers that exclude their participation as equal member of the society. The sad fact is people with disabilities are world’s poorest people. They lack equal access to basic resources such as education, employment, and healthcare along with social and legal support systems.Let’s imagine a situation. In a policy-level meeting a man using wheelchair is invited in the name of inclusion. He may need to go to the toilet but the door is less than 30 inch wide. Due to it he could not answer the call of nature. Even if fortunately he gets in, the height of the urinal creates trouble for him. The only option for him would be to rush home ignoring the meeting’s agenda.
By creating this scenario, I’m trying to make people understand that we lack disable-friendly environment and infrastructure. The infrastructure is rarely built considering people with disabilities. How many disable students do we see in our class? Does this not indicate that disables are not excluded?
Disables have minimum access to a lot of things. A person using wheelchair can easily handle phone calls, perform computer operations but s/he is not given the job just because s/he is disabled. Before hiring an employee there is a trend of condescendingly enquiring, ‘Are you disabled?’ Employers never ask, ‘How can we support you on your job once you are employed?’ There are people with stumps who can type fast and write well with leg. Their abilities are, however, never considered. So far, Nepali society has failed to include people with disabilities in almost all social activities. For example, a person using a wheelchair won’t get access to Movie Theater and s/he won’t get to see live match in the stadium.
Famous disables like Stephen Hawking, Stevie Wonder or Frida Kahlo have shown their mettle to the world. Disabled friendly environment promotes them, supports them and motivates them to work their best. Basically, educational institution needs to be accessible for people with disabilities. Building ramps would be easy for people using wheelchair and plain roads would be easy for visually impaired person. Lack of these basic things proves the building disabled rather than a person. Accessible toilets and roads need to be built for disables.
Even developed countries have failed to include disables in a meaningful way. It is too ideal to expect the same in our context. It takes time to change. Things would fall into place for disables only when the “normal” people’s perception towards them changes. When everyone understands that ramps are not just for the person using wheelchair but even for able-bodied to carry suitcases, infrastructures would get modified. It is not just in hospital that we require ramps; we need them in shopping malls, educational institutes and every public place.
Modification takes time and budget but acceptance requires only vision. Only when employer visualizes the capability in a disabled employee, s/he will be accepted. There is no reason to reject visually impaired person for telephone handling task or a person using wheelchair for a receptionist. Employers should not get shocked seeing a disabled facing an interview.
At the individual level, use of correct language is best way to support disables. Always asking if they require help is best way to support them without being too officious. Let us invite disables to our work in our team and let them live with dignity. Let us include them!
The author is a management student and likes to write on social and cultural issues
dwaipayan.regmi@gmail.com
Published in Republica's Oped dated 14th May 2014
www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=74700
