Centre brings hope for the disabled

31 May 2013 - 09:21 By ELYSSA CHERNEY
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Benedictor Mokoena glides through her classes at University of Pretoria. On her blue and silver motorized wheel chair, the 18-year-old navigates narrow hallways and avoids stairwells.

“Sometimes it is hard because you cannot do the same things you used to,” she said. “Getting in a bus, going to the bathroom, getting off the bed. A lot of things change.”

Mokoena was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident in 2007. She returned to public school and graduated as prefect, but her trajectory is not the norm for the five percent of South Africans living with a physical or cognitive disability.

Many drop out of school before reaching matric due to stigma and other barriers, following global trends revealed yesterday by a Unicef report, The State of the World's Children 2013: Children with Disabilities.

Worldwide, only 51% of girls with disabilities complete primary school compared to 61% of girls without disabilities, the report said. For boys, it’s only 42% compared to 53.

Attitudes of peers and teachers, building accessibility and learning material contribute to this difference in South Africa, said a social policy specialist at Unicef, Andries Viviers.

“The most important part of the report is to emphasize inclusion of children with disabilities, instead of just looking at integration,” he said.

Across South Africa, more than 100 000 learners with a disability attend public schools, Viviers said. The number of full service schools – ones equally equipped for students with and without disabilities in the same classroom – have grown from 31 in 2008 to 513 in 2011. There are 423 special needs schools nationwide.

Fundisa Multipurpose Skill Centre for the Disabled in Orange Farm is one of them. Founded in 2009, the NGO empowers people with disabilities through educational courses and teaching profitable skills like beading.

Most of the centre’s 17 students initially attended public school but switched to Fundisa, said its founder, Selina Mosele Mbatha.

“The treatment isn’t good for them there [in public schools],” she said. “The person in charge of them doesn’t know about their disability - they don’t know how to handle them.”

At an even earlier age, less than one percent of children with disabilities have access to early childhood development centres in South Africa because most centres do not cater to disabled children, according to the Disabled Children's Action Group.

But for Mokoena, things weren’t so bad. Her secondary school in Limpopo installed a ramp before she asked. “The teachers were very supportive," she said. "I wanted to show that it doesn’t matter if I am in a wheelchair or not, to still prove that I get good marks.” 

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