Improving the lives of people with disabilities

Employers say volunteers always stand a chance of getting permanent placement once a vacancy is created. File photo

What you need to know:

In this last part of the series, we look at what should be done to make the lives of PWDs better so they can live a more fulfilling life

From a narrow perspective, one may think disability is just about having an impairment, but according to Norwegian standards, it encompasses babies in prams and the elderly confined to wheelchairs. That is how serious it can be.
In Uganda, there have been some strides to see PWDs get the help they need.

One institution that provides facilities for students with disabilities is Kyambogo University. Usher Abayo the dean, Faculty of Special Needs Education in Kyambogo University, says special needs education training in Uganda started off as a department in the former Institute of Teacher Education at Kyambogo (ITEK) where it was training teachers.

He recalls that the training initially started in Iganga but when DANIDA built the Uganda National Institute of Special Needs Education (UNISE) in Kyambogo, ITEK became an institute in 1996 for Special Needs Education. In 2003, it was merged with UNISE to become a Faculty for special needs education in Kyambogo University.

He notes that according to the World Health Organisation, 10 per cent of any society is composed of people with special needs.
“Everyone has a special need and this is manifested in children at school where majority drop out before completing primary education. These need to be identified early and right now the only alternatives are braille and sign language interpretation,” he says.

Positive steps made
He notes that the Uganda National Association for the Blind (UNAB) is equipping blind people with computers fitted with the job access software, which helps them to work on computers since it has audio commands which help the users to understand what they are doing.

His biggest disappointment, however, is the low number of teachers given the magnitude of the problem because since the training started in 1996, only 500 teachers have been trained and many of them keep upgrading and leave the profession, creating a gap.

Things, however, were not always this way. In fact, more than 10 years ago, there were real efforts to get PWDs services.

Nayinda Sentumbwe, the director Enabling Services Uganda Limited (ESUL), says in 1995, the governments of Uganda and Norway established the Uganda Mobility Rehabilitation Programme under the ministries of Education and that of Gender, Labour and Social Development and he was appointed the assistant coordinator of the programme.

He remembers that the Uganda National Association of the Blind created the Uganda Mobility programme which was a rural-based programme which has been training instructors in Kampala until this year when they have not received applicants.

He explains that during the programme, which lasted five years, they were able to introduce vision impaired sporting activities, which included football, athletics, wood ball, and other sports which can be played by the blind.

“The balls have bells inside which provides audio; we have shown-down which is similar to table tennis. Sighted people can play it by being blindfolded and we also had programmes on braille,” he says. He recalls that at the time, everything was being imported and some of his Norwegian friends became interested in supplying the equipment so they started forming the concept of ESUL.

“Even in Norway, it is the private sector supplying such gadgets and government pays for them. In Norway the category of disabilities is much wider than here,” he narrates, adding that to date, ESUL has developed capacity to transcribe ordinary print into braille. They have also increased the range of products to include sports items, assistance devices, repairs and maintenance of products they supply.

“The most important thing PWDs need to know is that these services are available in the country. They should not try to import them because they will find them expensive yet from here, they are subsidised,” he says.

He notes that schools and universities now know about the products and have shown interest in buying them.

Setumbwe also believes that there has been an improvement in Uganda: “Previously, we had only one school of the blind which taught persons with disabilities but today the number has grown and they are spread across the country,” he says.

He advises parents and children with disabilities to understand that they can get education and live independent lives using these technologies.

Sofia Nalule the Woman Member of Parliament representing persons with disability, who also chairs the Committee on Human Rights Affairs, says access to information for persons with disability, has a promising future . She observes that many policy frameworks have been put in place to help PWDs and Uganda is complying to international conventions like the UN convention on PWDs.

Representation
“We have the Uganda Communications Commission Act which establishes the Uganda Communications Commission and it has representation of PWDs on the board, and there is a global move to make technology and ICT accessible to all PWDs,” she says.

She adds that last year, there was a conference on access to information held in Speke Resort Munyonyo and it was calling upon technology designers to provide considerations for persons with sensory disability, visual impairment and physical disability when designing the technologies.

She is optimistic that much as everything cannot be achieved at once, at national, regional, continental and international levels, there are efforts that are being implemented such as the East African Community, which has created structures for youths at policy level, which are at par with PWDs but are only hampered by lack of budgets.

However, one of the most important things that needs to be done is changing the attitude society has towards PWDs. Once society understands the struggles and the needs of PWDs, there will likely be a positive change towards them.

In order to create that change, the government should actively work towards ensuring the laws set out to protect PWDs is actually obeyed.