Disability Awareness Day: ‘Since lockdown, it’s been difficult for persons with disabilities’
The Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation along with members of the Mogale City Local Municipality paid the West Rand Association for the Physically Disabled a visit to get them active.
There is a reason why society today speaks of ‘differently abled persons’ rather than ‘disabled people’.
In the end, people with physical or mental deviations are and should be part of regular society. But unfortunately, as Annalene Rossouw, Director of the West Rand Association for the Physically Disabled (WRAPD) explained, “There’s a total of 606 052 people with disabilities in the West Rand (as per a 2011 census) and those with severe disabilities are often not schooled and don’t have a tertiary qualification. For them there exists many barriers of access and participation in society. For example, there’s no public transport for them, and that makes it more difficult for them to find and get to work,” further explaining that persons with a disability either get denied transport on a taxi or are charged a higher fee. With a maximum R1 890 per month disability grant, it’s difficult for them to get around.
For these reasons, the WRAPD tries to get their members involved in as much as possible.
On Friday, December 3 the Department of Sport, Arts, Culture & Recreation and municipal workers paid a visit to the centre to bring their members a day of fun and activities. Throughout the day, everyone played various team and individual sports to practice their coordination and work on their fitness.
Napogadi Masekoameng from the municipality said that, “This is part of our International Disability Awareness Month work and today is South Africa’s Disability Awareness Day. Since lockdown, it’s been difficult for persons with disabilities to participate in things and stay active.
We want to just make them feel refreshed. We’re playing ball sports, musical chairs and other things that involves every part of the body”.
Persons with disabilities joined in from Orient Hills and Magaliesburg.
Annalene added that, “Today is all about creating awareness around disabilities. Someone is only disabled because the community makes them ‘disabled’, because they create barriers for them to join in on things”.
With the festive season having arrived, the WRAPD would like to remind those with giving hearts that there is a large need in the disability community during this period. About nine of the WRAPD members can’t go away for the season, because they have no family and nowhere to go to, and will be staying at the centre for the time. Because of this, WRAPD hopes to host something for them over the Christmas period, and is reaching out to people to donate anything they can, be it funds or presents.
