African Woman and Child Feature Service

She walks in smiling, her steps not steady. She heads straight to a table, although partially blind. She stumbles and almost falls over. Another woman runs to help her regain her balance.

Nineteen-year-old Easter Nduta Njoroge is taking a computer operation course at the United Disability Empowerment in Kenya, a non-profit, non-political organisation whose main objective is to economically empower people with disabilities.

UDEK recognises that such people are part of the society and therefore need the same opportunities as their able-bodied counterparts to participate in development activities.

A few minutes later, an old man comes in. He, too, has a disability; he has no lower limbs and moves only with the help of his hands and knees. He has come all the way to the sixth floor of the tall building in Nairobi’s central business district to look for a job for his young son back home.

There are many people in Kenya with disabilities like the two, and these are the difficulties they face in their everyday lives. And as if to give them a better sense of hopelessness, they face a lot of discrimination. Despite struggling to earn a living, they are subjected to a harsh environment that for centuries has not made provisions to ensure that they are well catered for.

In Kenya, there are no recent data on the situation of people with disabilities. But some statistics are available, although it is generally agreed that they do not give an accurate picture of people’s physical conditions.

According to the Kenya population census of 1989, an estimated 0.7 per cent of the total population (estimated at 21.4 million in 1989) had disabilities. But this would appear to be an underestimate, especially at the moment.

It is still not clear the number of people with disabilities in Kenya. However, the fact is that most of them continue to live below the poverty line of about Sh80 (1US dollar) a day because their physical conditions cannot allow them to earn a living like their able-bodied counterparts.

This is because of the unequal empowerment in the society, made worse by discrimination and negative myths associated with their condition.

The situation is made no better by lack of access to education and credit facilities, discrimination in the job market, infrastructural challenges and the fact that most of the disabled are from poor families.

Susan Marube, a 32-year-old single mother of three, talks about her tough life: “Life in the city (Nairobi) can be a nightmare. There are the crazy matatu (informal commuter transport system) drivers whom we have to deal with on a daily basis. There are also city council askaris and the people who do not consider our welfare. It is a nightmare, but I am glad that I have my small business to take my family and me through the day.

“For me in a wheelchair to get to town by public means, I have to pay double the fare, for the chair and myself. If I am a person who is deaf, for me to deliver in any employment, I need an interpreter, and I have to share the salary with him or her. Whether self-employed or employed I need assistance.”

Marube sells sweets, chewing gum and whatever she can lay her hands on. She wakes up early in the morning, steers her wheelchair all the way from Komarock estate to the city centre, a distance of about 8km. But she says she is glad she secured a place in a street to sell her wares.

She says she has to work hard to take her children to school to secure an education as she believes this is the only way to a better life.

“Poverty levels are very high because we do not have specific economic initiatives targeting people with disabilities,” says Salome Kimata, the director of the United Disability Empowerment in Kenya, a non-governmental organisation.

“This is why you will find that people with disabilities engage in either very small-scale businesses like selling sweets. Worse still, some are left to beg on the roadside.”

In Kenya, access to funding for people with disabilities is non-existent, she says, adding: “We do not have a disability fund despite having it provided for in the Disability Act, 2003, which clearly stipulates that there shall be an establishment of a national development fund for people with disabilities.”

It adds that the fund shall be established as a permanent kitty and the money shall be to help the disabled to prosper in whatever they are doing to better their lives.

Kimata poses: “Why can’t people with disabilities have a fund of their own yet is it is already a law or an act of parliament? Why has the law not been implemented?”

She calls upon the ministry of finance to look into the issue, saying that, if established, the fund will help the disabled to involve in economic initiatives to reduce their dependence on able-bodied relatives.

Even with the existence of other funds, she adds, not so many disabled people have access to them. “Look at the youth development fund, how many disabled youths have benefited from it?

“When the government is doing mobilisation, when it is organising training for the disabled, does it get to consider that there are deaf and blind people as well?”

But she expresses regret that communication is the greatest barrier even before access to funds. “Information is key to anybody’s development, but how does the government ensure that we get this vital component in the society?” she wonders.

“We have free primary education, but just how free is it for a child with disability? As the mother of a child with a special need, you will have to go an extra mile to look for funds to take your child to a special school, which is not free. “This is what is contributing to the high illiteracy levels among the disabled, and the adult education programme is not friendly either. How then can the disabled compete in the job market?”

According to the law, materials, articles and equipment that are modified or designed for the disabled are exempted from import duty and the value added tax. The law also ensures that both the public and the private sectors reserve for them 5 per cent of their jobs, casual, emergency or contractual.

The disabled are entitled to a friendly environment to enable them to access buildings, roads and other social amenities. However, there is no disability-awareness component incorporated in the training of planners, architects and construction engineers.

Sign language has no officially recognised status; it is not used as the first language in education of deaf people and is not recognised as the main means of communication between the deaf and others.

And the government is doing precious little to encourage the media and other sources of public information to make their services accessible to the disabled.

Samuel Taurus Wainaina, the director of the Women’s Enterprise Fund, says it was set up by the government to benefit females aged above 18, meaning that any adult woman may apply for the money, whether as an individual or part of a group.

Kenyan women say there are flaws in accessing the money, including a requirement to apply for it in groups of at least 10 people ostensibly to reduce the risk of default. This makes it even more difficult for a disabled woman.

“For women with disabilities this is a double misfortune,” rues Kimata. “In a society, the stigma around disability to some extent makes it difficult for these women to get into such groups. Even if they decided to be in their own groups, how many are there in one community?”

Another hurdle that has been cited is the requirement that women write a proposal. Notably, joining of women entrepreneurs in the formal sector is still very low, they operate informal businesses; are faced with challenges of accessing capital, business skills, technology and markets.

But Wainaina says: “Creating awareness about a new fund is not so easy, and therefore we have not been able to reach all the women in Kenya. However, we have managed to reach up to 50 per cent of them, among them those with disabilities.”

However, he says that there will be loan appreciations that will also capture women with disabilities.

Kimata says that representation right from the planning levels is the only way forward in this issue. “When we miss out on planning level even when it comes to implementation there will be nothing,” she says.

She adds that it’s common practice in this country that people with disabilities miss out at the decision-making or policy-making level, hence there is nothing implemented or targeted for them.

Phoebe Nyagudi, the director of the National Council of People with Disability (NCPWD) says the funds are given as loans and not grants, and they are given through commercial banks and other financial institutions that also generate income from them.

“We have to realise the implications of the conditions put on these funds that make the persons with disabilities fear accessing them, but we have to ensure that they are sensitised about the various funds that are available,” she says.

People with disabilities need the funds as capital, just as they need skills to manage the funds. They also need some of the hurdles that stand on their way to accessing them removed.