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Unfiltered, uninhibited…just the gruesome truth
Challenges in Counties
ISSUE 080, April 1-15, 2013
Taveta has ignored the needs of persons living with disabilities By ROBBY NGOJHI He saunters along the streets of Wundanyi town in steady and perfect strides. Occasionally he stops to chat and crack jokes with friends and acquaintances just like any other man in the street would do. Unless you notice his white cane — a special walking stick — he holds, you will hardly know that Venant Mwabara is visually impaired. Tall, dark and notably confident, Mwabara wears a pair of shinny-framed dark spectacles to cover his eyes and those unfamiliar with his condition often mistake the dark glasses for shades. He is an eloquent, outspoken and jovial man with an unmistakable tinge in advocating for rights of persons living with disabilities. “Some persons living with disabilities tend to hate themselves and prefer staying away from other people in the society but I think that is not how it is supposed to be,” says Mwabara. He adds: “Personally I love myself very much because I came to realise that if you fail to love yourself first, then nobody else is going to love you.” According to him, anybody living with disability has to accept the condition he or she is facing first and, thereafter, find ways to deal with the situation. “Self denial is the worst thing a person living with disability should do because it will make life more stressful,” he says.
Beginning
As Mwabara explains, he was not born with the disability but encountered it after he completed his primary school education in 1997. He was preparing to join Form One when he fell sick and was put on sulfur medication which he was apparently allergic to. His father Mzee Goodrick Mwabara says after his son was given the medicine (Fansidar), his skin gradually peeled off his body and in the process his vision was affected. “I was with him at Wesu District Hospital where he was admitted for three months and I watched him suffer and finally lose his vision,” recalls the senior Mwabara adding that it was by grace of God that the young man survived. For Mwabara, it was not an easy thing to get used to the situation since the hitch meant that he would have to learn how to live with visual impairment. “Initially I was being given hope that there was a possibility of me regaining my vision but after it was confirmed officially that I had lost my sight, I had a rough time trying to accept the situation,” he explains.
“Eventually I came to realise that there was no otherwise but to accept it. I had to look for a special school to start learning from square one,” Mwabara explains. Since he had already learnt the basic education in primary school, he enrolled for Braille classes at Likoni School for the Blind in Mombasa before he went to Thika Salvation Army School for the Blind for four years. Despite going through the virtually insurmountable challenges, today Mwabara is a bona fide primary school teacher at St James Primary School in Mghange Location, where he teaches regular lessons in upper classes. As he narrates, joining the profession was not business as usual given that “facilities to cater for persons with disabilities were not there and are still not easily accessible owing to their scarcity”. “I went to Machakos Teachers’ Training College where I was forced to look for braille and an audio recorder to help me do my studies. I used to record the lectures and later use my braille to do my assignments. It was tough and were it not for some of my good friends who assisted me in different ways I do not know where I would be today,” he reminisces. It is the challenges Mwabara faced in the process of striving to achieve his career that make him feel that persons living with disabilities have been neglected for many years.
Rights
“Persons living with disabilities in the country have continued to encounter violation of their rights in spite of the fact that their rights are protected under the Constitution of Kenya 2010,” says Mwabara, adding “it is the wearer of a shoe who knows best where the shoe pinches”. Mwabara observes that apart from being discriminated by the society, most persons living with disabilities in the region have seen their rights denied because the local environment does not favour them to access quality education, information and public transport among other fundamental rights. “Why I say that the rights of persons living with disabilities have been violated especially in this County it is because in the first place there are no special institutions to cater for them,” Mwabara points out. He says: “We only have some few special units within regular schools. It is, therefore, difficult for persons living with disabilities to get education because the nearest institutions to cater for them are in Mombasa which is miles away.” As a consequence, Mwabara notes those with disabilities are likely to continue wallowing in
poverty in that without quality education they cannot compete in the job market. Article 54 of the Constitution section (b) stipulates that: “A person with any disability is entitled ‘To access educational institution and facilities for persons living with disabilities that are integrated into the society to the extent compatible with the interests of the person.” Section (c) of the same says persons living with disabilities are also entitled to reasonable access to all places, public transport and information. On the other hand Article 43 captures the economic and socials rights.
Entitled
However, Mwabara expresses concern that it might be difficult for the government to achieve the above in the County because “no proper strategies have been put in place to ensure that the article is implemented to the letter”. “We are very much concerned because at the moment, the Government has never updated their statistics on the population of persons living with disabilities in the County. I wonder what plans they have in store for us because there is a lot of discrimination for persons living Venant Mwabara who is visually with disabilities in the society,” he says. impaired says Taita Taveta County does not Mwabara notes that physically challenged have facilities that cater for the interest of persons find it hard to access most buildings people living with disability. around because they are unfriendly to them. Picture: Robby Ngojhi “For example, a person using a wheelchair KSh70,000 depending on the quality. will encounter problems if they want to access Further, Aghan explains, the blind cannot the local library. The same applies to toilets and walk without the cane whereby the cheapest is other public facilities. This is an injustice to us,” he around KSh3,000. In addition, they also need says. special software to enable them access computer Daniel Aghan, a disability expert in Nairobi, services with ease. describes the life of a visually impaired person as “These software like jaws, mercury and thun“extremely expensive”. der cost between KSh20,000 to KSh40,000. In Having worked with Handicap International, short persons living with disabilities require a lot an international organisation working in situaof money to survive yet not all can afford this,” tions of poverty and exclusion, conflict and disassays Aghan. ter alongside persons living with disabilities and However, he notes that persons living with disother vulnerable groups, Aghan is well versed abilities should not be viewed as special because with the financial constraints which most disabled they are just like any other ordinary people and people undergo. if their needs are properly budgeted for, they are “For example if we consider those with visual likely to lead desirable lives. impairment they have a range of requirements to “If their data is captured well up to the grassassist them in life,” says Aghan. roots in an all inclusive style, and analysed propHe adds: “They also need guides to assist them erly, it will make budgeting for their needs even wherever they go and standard rates for such simpler,” Aghan expounds. guides are usually KSh2,000 per day plus all other He adds: “With proper and up to date staexpenses like accommodation, transport and tistics, it will be easier to empower them both meals.” socially and economically by setting up income He notes that they also require facilities such generating enterprises for them.” as braille which costs between KSh50,000 and
Devolution may give children a fighting chance
Continued from page 1 and with time, experiences of childhood for millions of children growing up in congested shanties may begin to improve. Although children in urban areas are perceived to be more likely to survive infancy and live beyond their fifth birthday since they enjoy better nutrition, health and education compared to their rural counterparts, statistics are proving that this is not always the case. For children growing in urban slums, life is difficult and is interwoven with tremendous risks ranging from communicable diseases to danger posed by child predators who lurk in the highly congested informal settlements. “In Kenya, the average death for children living in slums is staggering at 151 per 1,000 live births. The leading causes are preventable and include pneumonia and diarrhoea,” explains Dr Ken Onyango, a paedia-
trician in Nairobi. What is largely referred to as the ‘urban advantage’ no longer extends to children living in slums. “Urban advantage basically means that circumstances in urban slums are much different from those in rural areas. For instance, urban areas have better and more equipped hospitals, schools and living standards are generally better,” explains Anastasia Muthee, a social worker in one of the city slums. She adds: “This means that a child raised in an urban setting has more advantages than one raised in the rural areas but the truth is that a child in rural areas is much safer than one in urban slums.” Statistics show that in Korogocho slums for example, an estimated 200,000 people live in crowded conditions, a combination of extreme poverty and an absence of basic services characterising the circumstances under
which children in the slums are raised. “As experiences of childhood become increasingly urban, so are the experiences of extreme deprivation and a continuous fight for survival for children living in urban slums,” says Onyango who often volunteers his services to slum areas.
Comparative study
He notes that urban life is harsh for slum children but this is not a problem unique to Kenya; urban population is growing fast in Africa followed by Asia. As an increasing number of African children continue to grow up in urban areas, so has the number of children living in urban slums in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. This is according to UNICEF’s report dubbed Status of the World’s Children 2012 which documents the wellbeing of children in an urban world,
this ‘urban advantage’ does not extend to children living in slums. In Kenya, for instance, the report says “around two thirds of Nairobi residents live in crowded informal settlement”. The report by UNICEF supports this claim, in many African countries such as Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania and notes that children in slums are least likely to attend school. Although many African countries have drastically reduced deaths of children under five years, the rate is higher in slum areas even in a country such as Nigeria whose capital, Lagos, is among the 21 world’s mega cities and one of the only two African cities. UNICEF reports have shown that women in urban slums are more likely to wean their children earlier than their rural counterparts exposing their children to health risks and possibili-
ties of death before their fifth birthday. Although the UN-Habitant, keen on human settlements recommends that not more than three people ought to be sharing a room, in slum areas, the small shanties are often overcrowded creating the perfect environment for deadly contagious diseases. Nonetheless, there are African countries that are making tremendous efforts to make urban life friendly for children. Morocco, in North Africa, is working on a programme dubbed ‘Cities Without Slums’ in hopes of creating homes that are children friendly. Progressively, Kenya will join its counterpart in North Africa as the county governments begin to respond to the needs of their constituents, making it attractive for people to remain in rural areas, where they can raise their children in more spacious, clean and safe environments.