”The Google queen, they call me,” laughs Ingrid Coombs, as she sits in her office. The nationwide travel coordinator for a recruitment company, Coombs has been a quadriplegic since she was 22 years old. But 16 years later, thanks to her resourcefulness and to the flexibility of her employers, Coombs has maintained not only her independence, but also her career.
From an office in her home she co-ordinates travel arrangements for her employer, Quest Flexible Staffing Solutions, which has provided her with a speakerphone, an ADSL internet connection and a specially adapted keyboard that enables her to type, using a stick held in her mouth. Coombs loves trawling the web and prides herself on being able to find anything her colleagues need on the internet. However, Coombs is one of the fortunate few in the disabled community. Her employers did not see just her wheelchair, they saw her potential.
The company also supplied Coombs with a specially adapted car to accommodate her heavy, motorised wheelchair. This increased mobility means she is able to visit branches more often and take a greater role in company life. ”It’s very exciting to become part of the corporate world again,” she says.
She says that there is a misconception that taking on a disabled employee requires huge cost and effort. On the contrary, all it requires is a little ”forward thinking”.
Coombs says that South African companies need to focus on the barriers built into corporate culture that prevent the employment of people with disabilities. These may be environmental or organisational obstacles, but Coombs believes the first thing that needs to change is attitudes towards people with disabilities.
”Parents told us ‘don’t stare’ and with that came the notion of ‘don’t look’ and so we were ignored … This is the era for able-bodied and disabled people to come together and get to know each other.”
People with disabilities are often hurt by the attitude that because they have lost the use of their legs, their minds no longer work either. There is a perception that disabled people can only do jobs that require ”no brain power”, says Debbie Bryan, Quest human resources manager. ”But give them the tools and they can get to higher level positions,” says Bryan.
But the reality is that very few employers share this attitude and people with disabilities face almost insurmountable obstacles, from getting to the interview to getting through the interview.
”The challenges start at the most basic level such as transport and continue up all the way to outright prejudice and closed-mindedness on the part of some human resources staff,” explains Ashley Berman of the Differently Abled 24/7/365 Trust.
And even those able to negotiate these pitfalls and find employment face a daily ordeal just trying to get to work. ”One area that is extremely annoying is the attitude of both commuters and taxi drivers towards people with disabilities,” Edwin Rihlamvu told the Mail & Guardian. ”I can assure you that if you are in a wheelchair such as myself, you are totally ignored during peak hours because you consume a lot of time and space. In the event that you are lucky to be rudely let in — much to the moaning and groaning of fellow passengers — you are then made to pay a passenger’s fee for the wheelchair.” In desperation Rihlamvu was forced to buy a car and have it specially adapted at ”astronomical cost”.
Quintus Gouws, a paraplegic attorney, says that many companies are missing out by not utilising the skills of people with disabilities. Gouws runs a family law practice and says that appearing in courts across the East Rand is an uphill battle. Ramps into court buildings are often too steep or badly maintained and some buildings have flights of stairs that cannot be negotiated in a wheelchair.
He says that he has been in the humiliating position of having to have the magistrate and opposing parties in one of his cases come out to his car in the parking lot to have the matter postponed because he couldn’t get into the building. ”It is impossible to get into any court without assistance,” he says. This despite an Equality Court ruling in 2004, which said that all courts should be made accessible to wheelchair users.
”Persons with disabilities are often hidden away. It is important that the workplace is accessible so that they are not denied access to citizenry opportunities and so that they can contribute to society and the economy,” says Hina Patel, manager of the National Accessibility Portal (NAP) initiative, a partnership between the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the presidency’s office on the status of disabled persons and organisations representing the disabled.
The initiative aims to help disabled people become more actively involved in society by adapting electronic devices and software to suit their needs.
Patel says that NAP can be seen as a vehicle that will help government implement its very progressive policies on disabled people, which aim to integrate disability issues in all government development strategies.
But disability activists say the government does not even meet its own targets: ”It should be setting an example by meeting its own quotas and role-modelling best practice,” says Berman. She says government departments have largely failed to ensure that 4% of their workforce are disabled people.
SA falls short of own standards
The average disabled person in South Africa lives in poverty and cannot access the support and services they require. Ari Seirlis, national director of the QuadPara Association of South Africa for quadriplegics and paraplegics, estimates that 75% of disabled people live below the poverty line.
This is despite disabled persons having their very own office in the presidency. The office on the status of disabled persons (OSDP) aims to highlight disability issues in all sectors of society, but critics say more needs to be done.
”In theory, we have the OSDP, the Constitution and we have the most fantastic commitment on paper but, in tangible terms, the plight of disabled people has not changed much,” says Jill Wagner, director of the South Africa National Council for the Blind (SANCB).
Less than 1% of all government employees are disabled, claim both Seirlis and Wagner, a figure which falls short of the target of 4% set out in the National Skills Development Strategy for 2005 to 2010.
”I think that they [OSDP] are toothless: most government departments have failed in their implementation. There is a lot of talk and very little action,” says Seirlis.
Wagner says the problem is that the OSDP is not responsible for implementation, but simply for influencing policy and monitoring government adherence to it.
”It must be very difficult for the OSDP, who are employed by the government, to be effective, because they would have to point their fingers at the government that employs them,” remarks Seirlis.
Filling posts in the OSDP with disabled people is not enough, says Seirlis, who claims the office does not consult widely enough with civil society organisations. ”They [OSDP] spend a great deal of time travelling between forums, but they don’t get to visit the national organisations of disabled people very often,” says Wagner.
Seirlis agrees. ”In all the years that the OSDP has been established they have never once visited our organisation. How do they understand the work we do?”
Johan Viljoen, national director of the National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities in South Africa believes that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to be signed on March 30, will strengthen the OSDP and make it possible for them to do more for disabled persons.
According to the 2007 budget prepared by the national treasury, the OSDP is grouped with the offices of gender and children which jointly received a budget allocation of R13-million for 2007/08.
Activists say the office will have to show its teeth a great deal more if it is to be effective in improving the lives of the disabled. ”It looks pretty where it is, but it needs to get ugly to get results,” concludes Seirlis.
The Disabled People of South Africa’s secretary general Mzolisi Ka Toni did not respond to questions sent to him by the Mail & Guardian.
Benny Palime, the director of the OSDP, said he could not answer questions about the operations and budget of the office without permission by Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad. He failed to respond in time to meet our deadline. — Haydee Bangerezako
UN adopts disability treaty
The United Nations has adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the first international human rights treaty of the 21st century. The treaty was spearheaded by the international disability community and is the first human rights treaty to have taken its momentum from extensive lobbying conducted through the internet.
The treaty will recognise the importance of international cooperation to improve the living conditions of persons with disabilities in every signatory country. It will be open for signature and ratification by UN member states from March 30 and will take effect once it has been ratified by at least 20 countries. Member states that have not yet enacted comprehensive domestic legislation protecting the rights of people with disabilities will be required to enact disability rights legislation upon ratification of the treaty. Currently, only 45 of the 192 countries that are UN members have such laws.
