Have we made progress in undoing the social stigma towards persons with special needs?

Inclusion is one of the most important social phenomena and practices that help to carry everyone along in building together as a society and a people the future we want. We must speak openly about any barrier to achieving an inclusive society. This will enable us to make practical and significant progress as individuals who value and cherish each other, treating them not only as important but also as equally valuable and dignified.

While there is no doubt that we have grown as a people in the inclusion consciousness, especially in caring for and supporting persons with special needs, we need more and more strategic actions to control and end the social stigma that makes persons with special needs to be regarded as disabled, contributing less to society, or even to be hated and ostracised and left out in matters that need collective discernment and decision-making regardless of who we are and how we are.

This year, the theme of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (which is marked every December 3), is ‘Amplifying the leadership of persons with disabilities for an inclusive and sustainable future.’ There have been a lot of improvements in advocacy, policies, and practices of inclusion locally and internationally. This international event has, since its inauguration by the United Nations in 1992, fulfilled this purpose of advocacy and raising awareness globally.

Going back to history, it was observed in 1976 when the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the year 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons that “the image of the persons with disabilities (special needs) depended to an important extent on social attitudes.”

This is why we need to examine and challenge negative social attitudes that stand as blockages to full participation and equality of all, not based on favour but on justice and the rightful dignity of everyone.

Furthermore, given the diversity of disabilities that many people have in society, we cannot work with a prescribed framework. What is needed is a shift in the mindset whereby the persons with disabilities are not looked at as ‘problems to be solved’ but as people to be loved and respected alongside their potentiality for possibilities when they are welcomed and empowered, considerate of their special needs.

We ought to desire, as a people, to reach a point where those special needs are not seen as defects, care or economic burdens, discredits, or signs of incompetence. They are simply special needs that have boundaries in their impact on a person.

We also need to reach a point where such special needs do not speak about the quality of personhood, their aspirations, or the credence of their opinion. Persons with special needs should be provided with platforms to speak about other things and not just about their conditions and needs. There is so much they can offer aside from the story of their special needs. 

For instance, a teacher who used a wheelchair because of her mobility difficulty once shared that she was made to sit at a high table during a celebration just for a show of inclusion at the school where she worked. It was rather negative to her because it was inconsistent with the way she was treated daily, where she said even mobility assistance to access some entrances at the school was not put in place, despite working there for a considerably long time.

We can only accept persons with special needs freely into leadership if, as a society, we respect them as persons with equal dignity and value. Respect here entails assessing and making an effort, especially from the government, to cater to their needs.

The government needs to study the designs of public mobility infrastructure, communication services (e.g., TVs), education delivery in schools, etc. to make them as inclusive as possible. Both the citizens and the government ought to fully participate in the duty of care towards persons with special needs. 

Those who are visually impaired should be helped to get the tools and machines they need to learn and walk; the same with those with hard hearing, as well as communication, physical and mobility, and even mental and intellectual special needs.

Special priority needs to be given to children to provide them with more access to possibilities in the future ahead of them. If we do not empower them to live along with all other people, we can hardly value their contribution.

Young people need very special advocacy in this matter, as they are the future. Growing up with discriminatory thoughts will not help them. A model of heroes who have risen above the limitations of their special needs will do a great deal of help to impart in them a positive mindset towards persons with special needs whom they encounter.

To end with, we need a consciously engineered transition in terminology from “people with disabilities” to a more positive terminology: “people with special needs.” It is heartening to see that the latter is more widely used in Tanzania these days.

When I was growing up 20 years ago, the Swahili word ‘Walemavu’ (the disabled) was considered normal and typically descriptive, but today ‘Watu wenye mahitaji maalum’ (people with special needs) has largely occupied the stage, thanks to decades of gradual yet impactful advocacy.

Shimbo Pastory is a Tanzanian advocate for positive social transformation and a student of Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, Philippines. Email: [email protected].