Celebrating people with disabilities

The Department of Social Development recently held a disability pride awareness month event in an effort to help people with different disabilities embrace who they are as individuals.

According to the West Rand Region Social Work supervisor, Precious Nxumalo the Gauteng Department of Social Development is advocating for the rights of people with disabilities, but it needs a collective effort to improve lives.

She was speaking during the disability pride event that was held in at the Tarlton Thusong Service Centre Hall on Wednesday, July 27. July had been declared disability pride month and is dedicated to helping people with different disabilities to embrace who they are and to promote visibility of people with disabilities.

Public awareness campaigns are also held to reduce the stigma and discrimination around people with disabilities, promote inclusion and positively influence the way people think about their conditions.

Nxumalo said disability was a consequence of an impairment that may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental, or some combination of these. A disability can be present from birth or occur any time during a person’s lifetime.

People living with disability encounter many challenges in their daily lives such as to get disability grants, employment opportunities, lack of accessible transport and lack of assisting devices. We have residential facilities where the people living with disability are accommodated to ensure their well-being.”

As a department they strive to give the best care at these facilities just as they would to their own families.

“We should give them access to economic opportunities especially by linking them with skills development centres. I am appealing to the community members to report the abuse of people with disability. Let’s all protect them.”

Nxumalo said the department acknowledged the social construct against people living with disability and wanted to debunk the myth that they were not capable of doing things for themselves.

This can be done by creating and enabling a socio-economic environment and removing barriers to the full participation, inclusion and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of mainstream society.