A CALL FOR 2%
We are called names, degraded to nothing but mere burdens to the economy. We are invisible, not only in the theoretical aspect, but in a practical context too.
Our disability has warranted for people to ask about me while in the room.
Do they think our common sense is fragmented?
Are they scared of us?
Do they think what we have is contagious?
What a mistery this is.
Why do you travel alone?
This has to be one of the most heard question for a person living with a disability.
To think it used to agitate me…
Even though I still don’t get why it is asked, now I know better than to allow ignorance to offend my independence.
We are ostracise din all areas.
Just when we break the shell that society has cocooned us in, standing shoulder to shoulder with them, we are still deprived due to a circumstance beyond our powers.
Little do they know that this does not impede us from doing what they can.
It may mean that I may need more time than you, but I am just as capable as you are.
The illumination that it may take me twice as much effort as the ‘so called’ abled beings drives us to excel in all we do.
All the doors that are opened to us we have brightened the corners we occupied.
The sad part is that not all the doors open.
Some are made of steel, no matter how hard you knock with your degree they refuse to open.
The government has sounded a loud call for an inclusion of people with disability, but still a mere 2%is a mission to accomplish.
They rather offer us learnerships to appear honouring the 2%, but even that is not fully inclusive.
If you are ‘too disable’ you are not welcomed.
If not, careful you will wake at age 35 and realise that your life has been a sequence of learnership after learnership.
They say employing a blind person is expensive…
You tell them you will bring your own assistive devices, but still.
When will we be given a chance to prove our self in the workplace?
We are tired of the accusations that we just want to sponge of government.
Allow us to contribute to the economy.
We crave having persal numbers like the others we were in lecture halls with.
We want to be part of tax returns with SARS.
We are ready and willing, afford us the opportunity to be useful we plead.
We are not asking for handouts, we come with qualifications like everyone else.
Our cry is that you see us before you see our ‘disability’.
let us be defined by what we achieved and not what was beyond our control.
Location – 154 Beethoven Street, Waterkloof Glen, Pretoria, 0010
Call – 081 765 5390
Email – info@dwldignity.org