Battling for ensuring rights

We often think it is virtuous to give alms to them. We entertain pitiful feelings for them. We take them in as a different kind of species. People with disabilities – creatures dwindled down before us ‘with abilities’. Have we ever cared to accept them as normal human beings? Have we, actually? For most of us the answer is apparently negative.

Fortunately it stirred the roundtable talk held at Waters Edge, the other day. Artistes, both government and non-government organizations and many others both with abilities and disabilities, both foreign and local, had something to say.

AKASA – literally refers to the unlimited sky – Association of Women with Disabilities, had obvious grounds to organize this roundtable. Of all those with disabilities, AKASA has identified, woman is in a grave position for being poor, illiterate or semi literate and being the vulnerable sex.

One lady with a physical difficulty shared her experience of being mistreated ever since the childhood.

“I learned the alphabet only at 16. Nobody wanted me to do anything. They had just left me behind.”

Thanuja Nawaratne, a lawyer born with a physical disability, however wanted to give the lie.

“True, it is worse to be born as a woman with a disability in a remote area, but still if you have the right kind of gumption, you can tear across every hurdle. I was born with physical disabilities, and today I am a lawyer despite everything that stood in my way.”

AKASA’s founder president N G Kamalawathi, being herself physically disabled, shared Thanuja’s voice.

“Luckily my parents and siblings never treated me as a disabled child. Like any child I schooled and did a job too. But every woman with disabilities doesn’t enjoy that privilege. They suffer because of others’ attitudes.”

Filmmaker Jackson Anthony toyed with the idea that people with disabilities should be recognized as ‘differently abled people’, though some did not agree with him.

“We are not differently abled. We have no reason to pass up that we are disabled. But it does not mean that we cannot contribute to the society. I may be someone with a disability and you may not have that disability, yet we all can think and we may have same talents. I may require a supporting device to write and you may not. And yet people talk about what we have written, not how we have written!”

Anthony called up the need for a change in attitude too. A number of other artistes such as Bandara Eheliyagoda, Lucien Bulathsinhala and Kularatne Ariyawansa opined that many creative works should come out for the sake of people with disabilities.

“We must create more songs and other creative media to ensure the equal position of people with disabilies.” Lucien Bulathsinhala said.

At AKASA headquarters based in Anuradhapura, a city where the poorest are settled in, donours with pitiful hearts are a rare scene. Kamalawathi makes sure every woman with physical disabilities is occupied in their own capacity. Unlike many organizations for disabled, Kamalawathi’s organization uses funds mostly to create more income-generating programmes.

“Once when I conducted an awareness programme, one particular group of people with disabilities asked for money to come to the venue. I rejected it flat out. If I gave them money, then I naturally accept the fact that they are dependent. No they can stand on their own. But most of them always think of banking on others. This has made people with abilities pity them.”

Kamalawathi works hard to wash off this attitude. It yields results, but slowly. In Sri Lanka, she went on to say, not only the attitude but the facilities for people with disabilities should be changed too.

If you have an issue with transport, you are still directed to social services ministry and not the transport ministry. They go through this kind of encounters in any sector.

Another delegate tabled the question on non-issuance of driver’s license to people with hearing disabilities.

“You drive with all the shutters closed with earphones in both ears. You drive only with signs outside. So do you make use of your hearing ability? In rural areas so many people with hearing disabilities drive without license but not a single accident has been reported.”

“It is no wonder”, one delegate stood up to say, “that people with one physical disability enjoy improved ability on other faculties. If you are blind, your hearing faculty is very much improved more than others. It is not a miracle, but they naturally learn to make the best use of their remaining faculties.”

Kamalawathi shared one of her experiences with foreign volunteers working in Sri Lanka.

“One Swiss volunteer told me that what we have in Sri Lanka is what they had 200 years ago. I felt the same thing when I visited some foreign countries like UK and Switzerland. Even in trains and buses, their foothold is as same as the platform. Here we can’t use the transport properly. Some places do not provide access for people with disabilities. Transport minister has given a pledge that they will provide mobility-friendly service in the near future. I am happy to hear that.”

Towards the end of the roundtable talk, everybody agreed on one thing: people with disabilities are neither differently abled nor less abled. But still they have a difference. They need props to carry out what a normal individual do without hassle. Some need specs to see, and some need not; some need hearing aids to hear, and some need not; some need crutches to walk, and some need not - yet their contribution to the society remains equal.