Coffin-carrying protesters in Durban say more jobs, less GBV for disabled

A Durban-based organisation that wants to end gender-based violence against people with disabilities and their exclusion from economic opportunities caused a stir when its members marched through the city on Thursday carrying a coffin.

Members of Nokusa Support for Disabled People, a non-profit organisation which seeks to upskill disabled people, embarked on a silent march from Albert Park to the city hall.

The body presented a three-year roadmap on how eThekwini municipality can work with the private sector to include the marginalised group in the job sector.

“The coffin symbolises that we're putting an end to GBV against people with disabilities. We're putting an end to disabled people being denied work opportunities while they have talent and skills to perform,” said founder Menzi Nxumalo.

Nxumalo said they chose to take a small group to the march because the aim was to raise awareness and engage peacefully. He said the memorandum speaks about the challenges facing disabled people regarding GBV and job opportunities, and to present a solution. 

They proposed starting a three-year-long programme in collaboration with eThekwini municipality that will upskill the disabled and provide work opportunities.

“In so doing we are giving hope to a mother who just gave birth to a disabled child that there are programmes that will allow that child to take care of her one day.”

A person who will be looking to benefit from that programme is Senzo Gumede, 44, from Umgababa, south of Durban, who was partially paralysed from a young age and still finds it hard to lift his feet when walking. Being admitted to hospital regularly affected his schooling, and he didn’t finish matric.

“Government doesn’t understand that most of us had to be in and out of hospitals as children, which affected our schooling. We have skills, I have worked in the office as an administrator, but I’m unemployable because I don’t have matric.”

Gumede was working as a receptionist until the Covid-19 lockdown, but his company decided to work remotely indefinitely when the lockdown ended, eliminating the need for his position.

He said he is desperate for a job because the R2,000 disability grant is not enough to cover his needs and that of his family.

“I have to see a doctor at least twice a month, and the return fee from Umgababa to Durban is R60 a day. It [the grant] must also contribute to my household needs because my mother also relies on her pension grant and my sister is unemployed.”

Nxumalo said they realised to what extent people are excluded from opportunities when they ran a programme that needed someone who understands sign language and were told the one person who could do it in Durban was not available.

“We see people every day at the Durban Workshop and in parks conversing via sign language, but they’re not given opportunities to show their skills and teach it to others too. Disabled people are capable of doing just about anything, just that they might do it differently.”

To achieve equal opportunities for the disabled, Nxumalo said everyone has a role to play: both the people living with disabilities as well as the wider community.

“The role we can play as a community is to understand people living with disabilities, and they in turn should expose themselves and not wait for handouts because they have a role to play. Your disability shouldn’t be your death sentence, it should be you transforming.

“We don’t believe in keeping them in homes for the disabled, but in upskilling them while they’re in their townships to end stereotypes and show communities that they too are capable.

“Even disabled people who participate in sports, it’s mostly the white community. Black people are hidden, we don’t see them.”

TimesLIVE