THE NEED TO STRENGTHENED DISABILITY INTERVENTION
By Godwin MosesThere is a thin line between a person with a disability and a person without any form of disability; in a
split of a second, a person leading a normal life could become disabled. A person is considered to be disabled if: They have a mental or physical impairment. The level of disrespect and discriminatory treatment against people with disabilities is so frustrating and diminishing. Realized that people with disabilities are humans too, we must directly or indirectly be willing to consider or accept new suggestions and ideas which would help us change our mindset when it comes to dealing with disabled persons.
On a daily basis, disabled persons experience untold hardship and challenges, or more dangerous than we could ever imagine as they go about routine activities, which is why it is important to draw attention to disability inclusion and ways in which access can and should be improved in any way possible. Your ability to get around with ease is something that you cannot afford to take for granted. From stairs to narrow passages and thresholds, these are all everyday barriers that we walk over and around every day. For those with physical difficulties, the story is entirely different.
Disability has three dimensions: Impairment in a person’s body structure or function, or mental functioning. Examples of impairments include loss of a limb, loss of vision, memory loss or activity limitation such as difficulty seeing, hearing, walking, or problem-solving. While some persons were born with disability others became disabled as a result of accidents, war, poor access to health care, illness, usage of alcohol, drug addiction, injections, and medicine. Poor people are at more risk of acquiring a disability because of a lack of access to good nutrition, health care, sanitation, as well as safe living and working conditions. Once this occurs, people face barriers to education, employment, and public services that can help them escape poverty. Also, in today’s wars, more civilians than soldiers are killed or disabled, and most of them are women and children.
On Jan 23, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018. Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) defines a disabled person as someone who has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. The law prohibits discrimination based on disability and imposes sanctions, including fines of 1,000,000.00 on the corporate body and 100,000.00 or six months imprisonment or both on individuals who contravene it.
According to the World Health Organization, in 2018, about 29 million of the 195 million people who comprise Nigeria’s national population were living with a disability. Data from the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey revealed that an estimated 7 percent of those 60 or older have some level of difficulty in at least one domain, seeing, hearing, communication, cognition, walking, or self-care; and 1 percent either have a lot of difficulties or cannot function at all in at least one domain. These estimated rates, while significant, are probably even higher because currently available data likely underestimate the prevalence.
Generally, the number of disabled persons in Nigeria is expected to further increase due to the emergence of new diseases, drug abuse, stress, armed conflict, malnutrition, and poverty. Other causes are increasing numbers of elderly persons, many of whom have impairments. This proves that there is a huge demand for there to be alterations in existing public buildings - schools, offices to be made across Nigeria to allow improved access through making simple adjustments for every item to be used by everyone in an inclusive way. That calls for State and non-State actors to consciously prioritize and double their efforts to expand the frontiers of inclusion of Persons with Disabilities and handle the same with utmost urgency and seriousness it deserves.
Appropriate government agencies saddled with the responsibility of creating public enlightenment should deploy technology to step-up public campaigns on the plights of disabled persons and social inclusion. Persons with disabilities have underlying health issues that make them vulnerable to diseases, therefore, appropriate information about COVID -19 and other diseases, including symptoms and prevention, should be provided in accessible formats such as print materials in Braille, sign language, interpretation, captions, audio provision, and graphs. It is equally important to focus on educating caregivers, educators, and mothers on disease conditions such as albinism which causes vision problems, down’s syndrome, which causes a distinct facial appearance and intellectual disability and developmental delays; and also autism - a serious developmental disorder that impairs the ability to communicate and interact. Similarly, a lot of education is needed to get our communities to protect hunchback (hunchback is someone who has a large lump on their back because their spine is curved usually refers to an abnormally curved spine. This condition can cause pain and be disfiguring. In some climes, this category of persons is being hunted for rituals particularly targeted towards moneymaking. Such fetish beliefs had caused the lives of some hunchbacks. This act is not only condemnable but barbaric therefore, youths should reject the narratives that ritual killing can make one rich overnight.
We need to educate teachers to be facilitators of inclusive education. Inclusive education can be made possible and successful only with the active initiative and the positive attitude of the teachers. The success of this entire process of inclusion depends largely on the general climate they establish within the classroom to make children with disability feel accepted, confident and achieve their academic and social potentials. It is, therefore, important to sensitize teachers towards the needs of children with disability. The curriculum of teacher education would play a major role in empowering the educator with not only theoretical experience, but real-life experiences to achieve a lasting change of attitudes. Equally, an attempt should be made to understand how teachers can be made motivated in this endeavor to ensure successful inclusion it children with special needs.
As a matter of priority, Government should endeavor to provide intervention funds to be used for scholarships, acquisition of assistive technologies, expansion of vocational training centers across the country to accommodate more disabled persons, and distribution of starter packs to encourage disabled persons to be more self-sufficient (entrepreneurs) and employers of labor as well at the end of skill acquisition training. The two-way link between poverty and disability creates a vicious circle, therefore, such interventions, particularly the provision of scholarship to people with disability are key to ensuring that substantial number of children with disabilities in Nigeria do attend school.
Athletes with disabilities should be scouted and receive scholarships based on their athletic abilities by their chosen school. Their abilities should not be seen as an inspiration rather they should be commended for hard work like their able-bodied counterparts; it entails attitudinal change on the way people rate talented people with a disability.
With the enactment of the disability discrimination (DD ACT) prohibition, the executive and judiciary alms, as well as the law enforcement personnel, should work together to bring an end to discriminatory policies, under-representation and other practices against the vastly under-served population of disabled persons.
Nigeria can increase disability representation in a political setting by encouraging younger generations with disabilities to become politically involved from local, State, to National levels. Incorporating disability voice in National campaigns is key to disability inclusion.
Job placement for people with disabilities is central to social inclusion. They deserve to be employed because they are educated, ambitious, and want to work. Most often they are discriminated against at work or being refused a job or denied a final interview. But when it comes down to it, employers need to see a person, including his/her disability, as an asset and not a potential liability. Government should include a considerable percentage of disabled persons in it social investment programs.
Persons with disabilities are more likely to be victims of violence or rape, and less likely to obtained Police intervention, legal protection, or preventive care. Many disabled persons face Police brutality, therefore, there is a need for intervention through the training of law enforcement agents for special needs to address issues or interface with persons with disabilities.
Many people with disabilities have faced unfortunate experiences at the airport or even in the air- left for hours without a chair or access to a washroom. Training the special services Request personnel would go a long way in promoting a more positive experience. A better interaction would be to ask travellers with a disability what they need and act accordingly. Also, major airlines need to do a better job at accommodating people with disabilities by building an accessible restroom within the planes. Many people with disabilities have to forgo traveling for long flights because they do not have access to the bathroom.
Accessibility is also an important aspect of realizing the rights of the aging population in Nigeria. As we grow older, our chance of experiencing a permanent or temporary disability is increased. Focus on accessibility can ensure that we can participate fully in our society well into our older years.
Ways in which Cities can improve accessibility for people living with disability include considering specific hearing and visual needs, designing for autism. Making the architectural alterations to the existing public building is a practical way we can ensure there is no discrimination between those who are non-disabled and those who are disabled. These fundamental changes include:
Fitting buildings with doorways is a practical way of improving accessibility for disabled individuals. By widening doorways wheelchairs and mobility scooters can pass through easily. This will allow more people to gain access to goods and services they need and also enhance their lives in a normal way.
Replacing steps with ramps will enable those with wheelchairs and mobility scooters the chance to get around a building or enter into a facility easily.
Modifying switches and handles - through moving light switches, door handles, and other important details that can be found on the surfaces of doors and walls, you will allow those who have difficulty with reaching up to be able to have the same access to switches. Fire alarms ought to be mandatory in many buildings, however, not all are designated to be used by those who have a disability, so effort should be made to improve such designs.
Providing accessible bathroom facilities (toilets) are vital when it comes to providing disabled people with basic facilities. All employers have to provide the necessary changes needed to ensure that disabled workers are not in any way denied toilets which could be of different form, or better still make assisted- use of toilets more available. The smallest of gestures such as offering a designated location to charge mobility scooter batteries to offering any form of paperwork in Braille could make all the difference when it comes to making the lives of those with disabilities that much more comfortable.
People with disabilities make up a vast proportion of the population and serve as a highly valuable pool of Nigerians. They form the biggest minority population, therefore; the disability community should be viewed as a valuable consumer or a targeted audience with significant purchasing power. So models with a disability should be incorporated into fashion and marketing commercials.
Promoting social inclusion schools is very important. Our overall cultural conciseness on how we treat and interact with a disability needs to change, beginning elementary school. We need to celebrate our peers for their differences. If this is taught at a young age, less discrimination and more social inclusion will occur. Having kids with or without disabilities, learning side by side helps everybody appreciate the talents and gifts all kids bring with them. As a society, we have the responsibility to promote the inclusion of our differences.
Promoting accessible tourism is a central element of any responsible and sustainable development policy targeted at improving the plights of
The disabled. It is both a human rights imperative, as well an exceptional business opportunity. Government should be committed to sustainable and equitable development. Certainly, making basic adjustments to tourist facilities, providing accurate information, and understanding the needs of disabled people can result in increased visitor numbers. This involves a collaborative process among all stakeholders: Governments, International agencies, tour operators and end-users, including persons with disabilities and their organizations (DPOs). Accessible tourism does not only benefit persons with disabilities, it benefits all of the society.
Another area of interest is electoral inclusion. Some of the election practices which create barriers for voters with disabilities should be addressed. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities underscores the equal right of persons with disabilities to participate in political life. People with a disability still encounter architectural, attitudinal, and technological barriers when exercising their right to vote, including inaccessible voting machines, an absence of sign language, interpreters, no Braille signs or ramps. The elections and Disability Encyclopaedia topic review examples that acquaint election authorities with emerging international standards on the electoral rights of disabled citizens and assist election authorities to identify specific strategies to enfranchise voters with different types of disabilities. Voter education should be implemented in such a way to effectively communicate to educate the blind and deaf in the phase of an election.
The media is a critical stakeholder in all spheres of national development, capable of promoting issues of national interest. Whereas Journalists are encouraged to fight or protect the vulnerable, the State and non-State actors should leverage the media to undertake massive public enlightenment campaigns to educate Nigerians on the sorts of issues that disabled people are experiencing, promote social inclusion and enforce the right of persons living with a disability. It is possible to see a fully inclusive society. The time to act is now, contribute your quota towards enhancing social inclusion, let’s all become voices that challenge discrimination against persons with disabilities.
##Media Action For Health, Environment and Sustainable Development (MAHESD)
