disability-rights-activists

"When we arrived, Eldoret had only one building, of mud and wattle, which was the bank, post office, and rest house combined. My father built the first shop of wood and iron in the main street for J.H.S. Todd, and they stocked everything needed for farmers. It had a lovely wide verandah back and front, and I always said this building was the start of my interest in architecture."

"The hardest part of a disabled person’s life is not being able to leave home. You always need another person, which not everybody has... I’ve spent most of the years of my life in a single room. It feels like you are in a prison, condemned to stay home...The difference between this kind of life and prison is that you don’t even have a cellmate. At most, you might have a pet. Or your friends come visit. It isn’t so bad sometimes. If you’re able to, you can read."

"It was not easy for the gender movement to easily convince that gender should not be a point of discrimination. It is imbibed in the viewpoint of society. You don’t find these things on the cover of a book; they are very deeply rooted. Such things exist in the being of a society. It requires a very systematic and collaborative effort to address them. In my opinion, empowering a society that has zero tolerance for any form discrimination is the solution. I know it is a long term investment and people would want an answer for facing discrimination that entails their group being given priority in this fight. However, that would result in other groups being left behind. I would encourage partnership, human oriented thinking of development where it is not only about numbers rather it is about the ability to ensure that no one is left behind. I would encourage joint movement of human beings and recognition of human diversity as values in a given society. I think that can take us forward."

"I think that is where I would call for inclusive schools. If we in principle agree that an education is not just a privilege for few but is a right for everyone, I think every educational facility be it physical or academic should be prepared to serve everyone regardless of gender or disability. All of the barriers that I had faced in an integrated school were artificial barriers. None of them were natural barriers. I believe that society has the power to remove all those barriers. I think it is about the various beliefs – if education is considered a right for everyone, every facility while being designed and used will be designed to cater to everyone’s use. It is about a mindset I would say. If you budget printing books in ink, you should also budget printing books in braille as it can easily be done!"

"I’m blind. I don’t have partial vision but I can see colours as long as the colours are bright. I have a vision but I don’t see (laughs)!"

"Becoming a woman with disability opened my eyes to the challenges persons with disabilities face."

"Through celebrating diverse experiences, the program can create welcoming environments where all young African leaders thrive. I am committed to ensuring no youth is left out of this transformative opportunity due to identity, ability or circumstances.”"

"My efforts have yielded significant progress, including expanding affirmative action slots for disabled students at public universities, introducing a scholarship scheme for disabled students at Makerere University Business School, and securing employment for disabled individuals at MUBS."

"With newfound confidence and honed public speaking skills, I have championed increased educational and employment opportunities for persons with disabilities."

"Overcoming a speech and language disability, I have emerged as a powerful advocate for disability rights in Uganda. The YALI Fellowships transformed my life, nurturing my personal growth and empowering me to harness my strengths."

"Despite progress, youth with disabilities still face barriers to fully participating in society, including accessing education and leadership growth opportunities like YALI fellowships. From online applications lacking accessibility features to prohibitive technology costs, hurdles restrict inclusion at every step."

"“When I looked at the world, I didn’t see a space for myself. Not in TV series, not when I read a book … there was nobody who represented people with disabilities. I decided, ‘I’m going to create that space.’”"

"We spoke a lot about her own experiences and we are trying to come up with more collaborations together. So menstrual healthcare will be a very strong area within the community to work on and when it comes to human rights and health in the future and other than that.”"

"I got to do a red carpet for the first time in my life! It was great. As a woman with a disability, as someone with a hijab, to be on the red carpet, posing, presenting a fashion sense, presenting my cause and my country. That was exciting and I loved it and I was trying not to get my wheelchair tangled. That’s also something I have to consider all the time!”"

"“So I still need to take a break and enjoy some afternoon tea but before that I have to do a lot of work around this award."

"“The thing is that anybody who is extremely serious about the work that they do and the type of opportunity that they want to bring to their country, probably cannot enjoy an experience because they’re constantly thinking about the way forward. They’re constantly thinking about connecting resources with opportunities. So, though I am in this amazing space with amazing people, I am constantly thinking about how we can leverage this opportunity as much as we can.”"

"Girlythings, she added, redresses imbalance. The reaction to these topics has, Khan said, been “extremely welcoming”, with significant support from Pakistani men. “It made me think: ‘Why haven’t we talked about this earlier?’ I’m only one person and I want to reach every corner, but this response makes me feel hopeful that our society is becoming very progressive.”"

"I run Girlythings, a service that delivers menstrual health products to women across Pakistan. I am the writer, producer and actor behind Pakistan’s first short comedy on disability called Fruit Chaat. I’m also a public speaker and do many other ventures on disability and empowerment.”"

"When we talk about Pakistan, it’s one country but there is a lot of diversity,” Khan said. “There are a lot of women who are empowered and have agency – but in the same country, you can find women who have never left the house or gone to school, so there are challenges across those diversities. For many women who work and go to the office, companies don’t have access to menstrual care, so what does she have to do? She has to quit the meeting,” she said. “It creates a barrier.”"

"As soon as you start moving around the world, you face challenges. It’s difficult to find a school or a university that is wheelchair-friendly and has an elevator, so I had to pick the institution first, then my degree. Being yourself, out in the world, is the greatest accomplishment,”"

"I feel we need to bring Pakistani or South Asian perspective to these platforms because western ideas get more space. This doesn’t mean that women in other countries are not suffering rather many a time they may not be aware of the different platforms where they can raise their voice. Through representation, we can remove confusions about our part of the world as well as call out any organisations which exploit Pakistan for their own gain by constantly painting it as a site of pity.”"

"I don’t like sob stories or tragedies,” said Khan, who is a disability and women’s rights campaigner in Pakistan. “I’m not saying they don’t exist – we can all face adversity – but I think we need a more positive approach to solving problems. I wanted to present people with disabilities in a more positive way."

"The fun of living with a , like — progressive meaning you lose vision slowly over time as your retina, a very important piece of the eye, and its function deteriorates, aka breaks down. So you slowly lose the ability to see. I was born legally blind, so I've always been legally blind — though I consider my childhood my quote sighted years because I could see color, I could read print, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when I was a child, I slowly would go through spurts of losing vision, and then having my vision stabilize. The majority of my vision loss, which is what I consider myself to have gone blind, is when I was fourteen years old. That was the most significant rapid chunk of my vision loss."

"I don't want to make it seem like once you get to the self-acceptance phase — life is good now! Or once you learn how to cope and accommodate yourself and gain all your skills — life is good now! I don't wanna paint that picture — because, frankly, it's just not true."

"He is so joyful all the time. You know, he made me laugh, he made me smile, and I needed that, and it endeared me to him. But I'm not gonna be like, "Oh, I loved him." I didn't. I didn't. I liked him the way I would like a friend's dog, but he didn't feel like my dog. He felt like a stranger that I was sleeping with. And it's kind like losing the love of your life and starting to date straight away. Like putting this bandaid on a gaping wound — but it's hard to fall in love in the midst of healing."

"They often face triple jeopardy being disabled, their gender and unemployment. The Trust is therefore set out to empower and resurrect hope in the girl child with a disability to allow her to realise her potential and the impact she has in her community and society as a whole"

"Women with disability receive double stigmatization both from a gender and disability perspective. we are demanding to hold posts in key decision making positions as we say NO to stigmatization, but also it is my encouragement to fellow colleagues that you have to participate for you to be recognized, make an impact in your societies."

"They can relate to me. They say ‘if she is working, we can also work.’ This is not a time for self-pity, being a woman and living with disability should not turn us into charity cases."

"There are a number of lessons learnt from my moments of solitude. l learnt that the world owes me nothing but that l can choose how to respond to life challenges. l got to understand that l can't change certain situations but l can adapt on the best way to handle the situation. even though l am differently-enabled, my challenges are not unique, but they mirror what everyone else goes through."

"Barbra has written and conducted research on Deaf education, Access to Health for the Deaf & Sign language. Barbra has a keen interest in the empowerment of the Deaf and hard of hearing. She has experience in human rights, democracy, governance,elections, gender and education."

"She came up with the book as part of efforts to address the evil stepmother narrative that has poisoned society for centuries ."

"It is a sad reality that most health campaigns done by the Government target non-deaf community for example circumcision and cervical cancer campaigns."

"Every women who gets into a second marriage faces a lot of stress and confusion as she tries to adjust to ready made family. There is no time to learn to be a mother as you are starting with errands and a system you are not used too."

"I am sure there are a lot of women who have taken good care of their partners children. Not all step mothers are jealous and society has to celebrate such roles."

"Being a woman born with a disability I could relate to the challenges women and girls with disabilities face that drove me to establish the organisation. The girl child with a disability is marginalised in society, often bringing in a sense of hopelessness"

"The love and support of family.They made me believe that I can be anything in life as long as I work towards it."

"The subjects I excelled in were Human and Social Biology, English, Integrated Science, Home Management and Commerce"

"At this school, a person could only write five subjects with female students taking up home management while males did biology but I chose to do both. The reason was because I was weak in mathematics so this strategy then helped me to attain five Ordinary levels"

"So I had to be careful of how I did things. If I fell or had any slight accident, I would easily get a fracture on the leg or arm"

"I did not face any challenges in primary school because the school I attended, St. Giles Primary School, accommodated children with disabilities only. Therefore I did not feel any different. The only challenge was with my disability because I was born with brittle bones."

"In spite of what I have been through, I still love life and want to make the most of each moment, good or bad. My challenges are not unique, but they mirror what everybody else goes through."

"These images, there are lots of them out there, they are what we call inspiration porn. And I use the term porn deliberately, because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people. So in this case, we're objectifying disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people. The purpose of these images is to inspire you, to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, "Well, however bad my life is, it could be worse. I could be that person.”"

"Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you dramatically. I am not here to inspire you. I am here to tell you that we have been lied to about disability. Yeah, we’ve been sold the lie that disability is a Bad Thing, capital B, capital T. It’s a bad thing, and to live with a disability makes you exceptional. It’s not a bad thing, and it doesn’t make you exceptional."

"I want to live in a world where we don't have such low expectations of disabled people that we are congratulated for getting out of bed and remembering our own names in the morning. I want to live in a world where we value genuine achievement for disabled people."

"That quote, "The only disability in life is a bad attitude," the reason that that's bullshit is because it's just not true, because of the social model of disability. No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. Never."

"I learn from other disabled people all the time. I'm learning not that I am luckier than them, though. I am learning that it's a genius idea to use a pair of barbecue tongs to pick up things that you dropped. I'm learning that nifty trick where you can charge your mobile phone battery from your chair battery. Genius. We are learning from each others' strength and endurance, not against our bodies and our diagnoses, but against a world that exceptionalizes and objectifies us."

"We are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses."

"I was learning as my friends were, and people I didn't know around the country, that we had to be our own advocates, that we needed to fight back people's view that if you had a disability, you needed to be cured, that equality was not part of the equation. And we were learning from the Civil Rights Movement and from the Women's Rights Movement. We were learning from them about their activism and their ability to come together, not only to discuss problems but to discuss solutions. And what was born is what we call today the Disability Rights Movement."

"Each day of those early years in pediatric surgery I felt I was on the cutting edge. Some of the surgical problems that landed on the operating table at Children's had not even been named. Many of the operations I performed had never been done before. It was an exuberant feeling, but also a little scary. At times I was troubled by fears that I wasn't doing things the right way, that I would have regrets, or that someone else had performed a certain procedure successfully but had never bothered to write it up for the medical journals, or if they had I couldn't find it."

"I might be better able to help parents of dying children, but for quite a while I felt less able, too emotionally involved. And from that time on, I could rarely discuss the death of a child without tears welling up into my eyes."