The following article is by Julie Lewis, herself disabled, on the Disability Rights Act which was passed by Parliament last year and signed into law by President Jagdeo in November.
The passage into law of the Disability Rights bill augurs well for persons living with disabilities for several reasons. Foremost among these is that disabled people in Guyana can now truly say that they have a voice and can insist on having their rights respected. What are some of these rights? An important one is the right to education and training. Many children and adults living with a disability are currently being denied the right to an education, not because the system necessarily denied them that opportunity, but because of the many physical and information barriers that exist. It is virtually impossible for someone in a wheelchair to independently climb stairs to attend classes on the upper levels of buildings. Likewise, a person who is totally blind or visually impaired finds it difficult to cope in settings where every piece of written work is in print. A hearing impaired person cannot function effectively without sign language interpretation. These are just some of the barriers that loom large preventing a person living with a disability from taking advantage of a sound education. The act calls for the removal of all hindrances to education. In fact it makes redundant barriers and opposition to employment, recreation and all other human rights enjoyed by the rest of society.
Granted, nothing is going to happen overnight, as provision has been made for businesses, institutions and even government offices to be given time to effect the needed adjustments to their buildings, facilities and/or services.
The Disability Rights Act is the result of a long campaign, beginning, some might argue, in 1994, when efforts began to fashion a policy on disability rights.
That policy was formulated and tabled in the National Assembly in 1996. It called for the establishment of a government sponsored national commission on disability, which was duly done in December of 1997, when the National Commission on Disability came into being. Part of its mandate was to spearhead the transformation of the policy on disability into a disability rights bill.
Following several consultations with stakeholders, including persons with disabilities, across the country and many drafts, the bill was finally tabled in the National Assembly on November 26 2009. It was eventually passed some months later in 2010. President Bharrat Jagdeo signed it into law on November 2, 2010.
Persons with disabilities will have a crucial role to play in ensuring that the act is fully implemented. They will have to constantly monitor the act to present or at least speak out about any violations. They can even take legal action should that become necessary.
It is my profound hope that no one has to be taken to court and that eventually every single aspect of the act is fully complied with by all.
On a personal note, I am typing this article on a computer, even though I am totally blind. This is possible because installed in the computer is a screen-reading programme, called Jaws, which speaks every character and word I write. Without going into all the details about how Jaws or any other screen-reading programme works, it allows blind or visually impaired persons access to all manner of information, whether it is stored in the computer or on the internet.
The Act on the Rights of Persons with Disability in its present printed format is not accessible to blind or visually impaired persons unless someone finds the time to read it for us. This applies to all written documents, including receipts, textbooks or manual cards. However, thanks to Jaws, I am able to ‘read’ novels and newspapers as well as research any topic under the sun and write and read emails. One caveat though, computers and Jaws and other screen-reading programmes are costly, and nearly every blind person, including me, cannot afford to purchase the technology.
The government’s one laptop per family plan would be a solution once the computers have the capacity to accommodate the speech software.
Greater access to information might result in more visually disabled children and adults attending school and other learning institutions such as the University of Guyana. They would not have to completely rely on others to read or write for them as was my experience during my time in high school and at the university.
I’ll be forever indebted to all those who spent countless hours reading to me and correcting my typed scripts. It was at times frustrating, though. Especially when there was no one available to assist me in locating that one piece of information that I desperately needed or erase a mistyped word.
Getting around the streets is also problematic for blind and visually impaired persons, with very few streets paved and those that are, are so uneven that they can cause one to fall. Traffic lights are way too silent to mean anything to a blind pedestrian.
The act, no doubt, in time will cause some of these challenges to be overcome thereby enabling persons with disabilities such as myself, to finally break through the proverbial glass ceiling.
