By Aribino Nicholas
Upwards of a million people in Zimbabwe have disabilities that are varied in outlook. Having a disability in Zimbabwe comes with a bundle of challenges that further compound the participation of people with disabilities (PWDs) in their day to day lives. The challenges that emanate from having a disability can be associated with both internal and external factors. Internal and external factors can either make or break the spirit or resilience of PWDs. It is the intent of this opinion piece to major on discussing how external factors have complexified the lives of people with disabilities in Zimbabwe. External factors that stand in the way of PWDS combine to deny them opportunities for collective access to services, products, programmes, projects, employment, education, entertainment, health care, tangible and intangible resources and political participation.
Collective access is problematic in Zimbabwe in every facet of the concept. For example, a school in Zimbabwe may be said to be inclusive, but this inclusivity will just be physical. Physical access without epistemic access cannot complete the whole puzzle of collective access. For instance, a deaf child may be enrolled at a regular school, the act of enrolling the deaf child may signify physical access, but if the teachers and children in that school cannot use sign language for the purpose of knowledge distribution and dissemination within and without the classroom, the school environment will lack collective access. Most mainstream schools in Zimbabwe have enrolled deaf children but their typical students and personnel cannot use sign language. This act of enrolling children with diverse requirements without the necessary paraphernalia and personnel to manage them is not Inclusive Education but dump streaming. It is dump-streaming because the students who come to a mainstream school with extra needs that cannot be meaningfully met in such a setting end up like Alice in Wonderland, alone, confused, mesmerised, dumbfounded and perplexed. Another example is that of students with visual impairment in mainstream schools who have not found any solace in such settings because teachers and other children are ill-equipped to use Braille to communicate with them.
The public space of schools aside, this writer has also been touched by the lack of collective access for PWDs in private spaces like food courts, eateries and some social places that lack collective access despite the Disabled Persons Act 1992 having a provision on the issue of accessibility of physical infrastructure. In some private spaces, some of which were recently built, to get to a point of service delivery, one must navigate a bank of stairs, which is a herculean for wheelchair users. The lack of universal design in private spheres that serve the people of Zimbabwe is a recipe for access and treatment discrimination. For example, a wheelchair user who may want to use a toilet may need to be lifted by other people to access the toilet will feel embarrassed, because the lifting of a person may approximate indignity and loss of confidence. Some high-rise buildings do not have lifts, but just a bank of stairs. Wheelchair users may be denied opportunities to access services, goods and products in those high-rise buildings. Collective access is critical for embracing every citizen in terms of participation, business, education, health care, employment, politics and movement. In terms of business, the production and distribution of condoms have also not come with collective access, especially for people who are blind as their instructions are not in Braille. The boreholes that are drilled in both urban and rural areas need a lot of physical stamina to be useable; children, old people, wheelchair users and those with muscular dystrophy cannot easily use them. Collective access is also problematic when it comes to electoral processes-polling stations, ballot papers and other materials that are not in accessible format for blind people, polling staff that are not conversant with either sign language or Braille.
In my survey with colleagues in different disability groups the following government buildings were cited as being inaccessible to wheelchair users;
• Benjamin Burombo building in Masvingo town only has a bank of stairs from the ground floor to the last floor
• Wigley house -Provincial Education offices in Masvingo have no lifts
• Gwanda Registry not universally designed
• Beitbridge Registry no collective access
• Mount Darwin District government complex no ramps
• Masvingo Post office has only stairs that complexify the lives of PWDs.
Buildings aside, the government of Zimbabwe over space and time has procured ZUPCO buses that are inaccessible to wheelchair users. Combis and private cars are also not adaptive fit for wheelchair users. In-toto, it can just be said that the transport system in Zimbabwe is not universally designed for PWDs in general and wheelchair users in particular. It is important to appreciate and understand that Zimbabwe has created an opportunity economy for hustlers because of its formal economy that has tanked; hustling requires people to move from point A to B. PWDs have families to look after and they are involved in eking out a living through hustling, how then can they move from point A to B when the transport system is just meant for the typical people? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) 2006, under Article 29 asserts that PWDs have a right to participate in the public affairs of their countries Without collective access Article 29 will just resemble a pig’s tail that covers nothing. Furthermore, Article 9 of the UNCRPD 2006 also talks about universal design and the normative practices in Zimbabwe at the material time seem to be at odds with universal design.
Collective access will also remain a pipe dream for children with disabilities because of the perennial delays in the disbursement of the basic education assistance module (BEAM) to special schools. The delay in the disbursement of BEAM has derailed a lot of programmes and projects in special schools. For example, special schools are not having money for sporting activities, look and learn visits, food and nutrition security. Lack of collective access for PWDs in general and children in particular creates barriers to being and becoming. State and non-state actors should regard disability as a natural meeting ground for social protection, stimulus packages, co-decision making and programming so that collective access becomes a low hanging fruit for all and sundry.
N.B Views and opinions expressed in the article below are solely the owner’s and do not represent any organisation
