Persons with visual impairment are as good as anybody else in performance

By David Nangosi

Uganda hosted the 6th Africa Forum of the blind - 4th to 8th October 2015 at Speke Resort Munyonyo.

The Forum offered unparalleled opportunities to learn, network and weigh in on the future of disability advocacy in Africa and is open to any individual or agency with an interest in blindness and visual impairments in Africa.

It is the largest ever gathering of the continents visually impaired persons, with an engaging five-day program of participants from diverse backgrounds across the globe.

The Forum serves as a one-of-a-kind market place of ideas and products for scholars, consumers, decision-makers and service providers alike. It was an opportunity for development partners, CSOs and government to learn about how to mainstream issues and needs of visually impaired persons in national development programmes.

That said, on the 30th of September 2015, I received a complaint from a one Mwambu Musa who is blind, lamenting his saddening experience in search for employment.

Musa, a graduate of Kyambogo University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Community Based Rehabilitation and now volunteering with a Youth with Disabilities organization in Ntinda, heard an announcement on Local FM Radio station based in Kampala inviting young persons to participate in talent search activity.

Musa, with the hope of being selected arrived at the station with his guide and was accorded a very cordial welcome. He participated in the due processes then and gave his very best – so he says.

However, at the conclusion of the entire exercise, he was informed by the Director of Programmes that - “Your are actually good but the decision I am going to take might be positive or negative but even if you performed well, like you have done, I cannot take you on. You are disqualified by the nature of your disability”

Feeling dejected, Musa reported the injustice meted out to him to the Human Rights Department of NUDIPU.

Disqualifying someone and denying him a job due to his disability has far disheartening effects in the self-esteem of a person, buttressing of poverty in the life of a person and denies the future opportunities of that person. People who are blind or visually impaired have a wider career possibilities and can perform almost any job like any other person apart from maybe driving.

With the requisite training and skills, a qualified blind person can do almost anything their sighted counterparts can do. In fact the only thing that was deemed almost too impossible was for blind people to drive cars. Recent trials of self-driven cars will soon make inability to drive by the blind a thing of the past.
 
Whether a blind person can do a particular task depends on whether he/she is qualified to perform the task or has an opportunity to learn how to do it like any other employee or whether he gets the opportunity to perform on the job like any other employee. The only difference between "any other employee" and a blind person is that the blind person may need special tools to perform the task, tools that eliminate or lessen the need for eyesight.

The international and national legal provisions detest discriminatory practices against PWDs and it would be so befitting if blind persons cannot be taken on by some employers because of being blind.

Back to the beginning. The example of outright discrimination is being meted out to Musa, when Uganda was hosting the 6th Africa Forum. I wonder if the production Manager of the Local FM Radio station has took any specific interest in what was going on in Munyonyo since Sunday 4th October.

The writer is a Legal Assistant at NUDIPU