What should we do for impaired people in Ethiopia?

Looking around the various neighborhoods of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, we often encounter a lot of individuals with different kinds of impairments. Some of these people are able to function well and contribute to the overall growth of the society, regardless, of the hurdles brought about by their impairments. And a few of these individuals are able to use their impairments as an advantage point in order to do certain tasks that most regular people can’t do. But unfortunately, a majority of impaired individuals in Ethiopia are disabled due to a combination of psychological, social, political, and economic factors. Hence, I want to talk about some of the impaired individuals that I regularly encounter, discuss whether they have been disabled and make recommendations about what we, as a society, should do in order to alleviate some burdens suffered by these individuals. But first, it is important to denote the difference between impairment and disability. Impairment is the lack or abnormality of a physical or psychological function in an individual. While disability is any condition that makes it difficult for a person to do certain activities or interact with the world around them. It happens, not just as a result of an individual's impairment, but also because of factors in their environment that prevent the world from being easily accessible to them. With this said, let's go to the subjects of this piece.

 

The first story that I want to share is that of a man in the neighborhood of Winget. This man has autism, which is a developmental disorder that is characterized by difficulty in social interaction and restricted or repetitive patterns of thought and behavior. Because of this impairment, he is not able to effectively communicate with people and is often mistreated by them. Some of the people in his town have superstitions that lead them to believe that autism is caused by a curse that came due to the parents’ actions. And since his mother didn’t have a husband, they blamed his condition on her for giving birth without ever being married. As a result, their neighbors discriminated against both of them.

 

When he was a child, he couldn’t go to school like his other peers. This was partly because his mother feared that the other students would bully him in the same manner as the kids in his neighborhood. However, the main reason that he couldn’t go to school was that, there was no curriculum to support autistic kids in public schools and his mother couldn’t afford any of the private institutions that were specially designed for students with his condition. Since Ethiopian public schools don’t have the materials or resources necessary to support students with autism, he was not able to receive the basic education that every child deserves. And because he didn’t have the opportunity to learn anything, today as a person in his 20s, he doesn’t have a job and has not become a productive member of society. Instead, he usually stays at home and fully relies on his mother to fulfill his basic needs. Hence, he is disabled not just because of his disorder, but also because his environment didn’t have the correct mentality or the resources to support him.

This is a sad reality that could have been avoided. For instance, if this man had been born in a western country, he wouldn’t have faced this amount of mistreatment and discrimination from the society. Also, he would’ve had classes that were specifically tailored for autistic students within public primary schools. Furthermore, he would’ve had a number of community centers that give specialized life skill training in order to help him become an independent adult. It is these types of centers and schools that have given people with autism the chance to live better lives in developed countries. For example, in the United States, more than 44 percent of students with autism receive some type of postsecondary education in 4-year universities or 2-year community colleges. Also, in the United Kingdom, 32 percent of autistic adults are in some kind of paid employment.

 

Meanwhile, in Ethiopia, there are only two state-funded child mental health clinics, both of which are in Addis Ababa and are, therefore, inaccessible to communities outside the city. The few autism schools that do exist across the country don’t have enough funding to reach the actual number of children that require their help. This unfortunately means, that the vast majority of children with autism remain undiagnosed and with no access to appropriate education. Therefore, even though, we don’t have enough funding to create specialized classes to accommodate children with autism in public schools, we should at least train teachers on how to properly engage with these types of students so that they can take part in the regular course offerings at the school. And most importantly, we need to continue educating the society about the dangers of these kinds of superstitions and social stigma in order to ensure that impaired individuals are treated with the kindness and mutual respect they deserve.

 

The second story I would like to mention is about a girl in Piassa. She has a hearing impairment which was caused when she was a fetus, due to her mother’s use of an inappropriate medication that was not recommended by a doctor. Due to this impairment, the girl is completely deaf and can only communicate using sign language. However, the teachers she had encountered since she was a small child didn’t know any sign language. Furthermore, her parents couldn’t afford to enroll her in schools that have specialized teachers that could communicate with her through ESL (Ethiopian Sign Language). As a result, she was not able to receive the foundational education she needed. And today, even though she is in her teens, she is not able to attend school like the rest of her peers due to the lack of accommodation in both public and private schools in her area.

 

Another thing she struggles with due to her impairment is getting adequate health services. Every time she goes to a hospital, she has to bring a family member to translate the ESL so that she can communicate effectively with the physician. If it wasn’t for her family’s presence, she would’ve been neglected by the health workers, as the number of them that know ESL are very few and far between. When hearing stories like this, there is one important question that we have to ask ourselves. What’s going to happen to those who don’t have somebody to translate for them? Are they going to lose access to something as essential as health care just because they are not capable of communicating their conditions?

 

This girl completely relies on her family to function in this society on a daily basis, for example, to take transportation, to get health care, to have social interaction and so on. And since she is inhibited from one of the major life activities which is her education, we can say that she is disabled. However, her disability could be easily reversed. This can be done so by enforcing ESL course requirements on people studying to become teachers and health care workers. This seems like a justified and worthwhile action when considering that an estimated 1 million people across Ethiopia have hearing impairments. Therefore, making the Ethiopian Sign Language a course requirement for teachers and health professionals, would to some extent ensure that hearing impaired individuals receive two of the most important human services, namely, education and health care. And consequently, it would prevent some amount of them from becoming disabled.

 

The third and last story that I want to highlight is the story of two men in Leghar. These men are strangers, but they have something in common, they are both visually impaired and often hangout in the taxi station next to the stadium. Even though they share the same type of impairment, they lead very different lives. One of these men is employed and is only at the taxi station to get a ride to go back home after work. He is independent and self-sustaining. While the other man is unemployed and spends his entire day inside or near the taxi station in order to beg commuters for money as his only source of income. This man is clearly not living under good conditions. He depends on the sympathy of strangers as his daily source of bread and has no other means for supporting himself.

 

While it is not quite clear if either of these men have been educated, one thing is for certain. One of them is able to lead his life well and has become a productive member of society, while the other is suffering from extreme poverty and has become a disabled individual. When noticing these two men in Leghar, there are two important questions we need to ask ourselves. First, what are the factors that led the first man to become independent and economically stable despite his impairment, while leading the other to be disabled and poor? And secondly, what can we do for the disabled man and others like him, in order to help them become self-sufficient and live under better conditions?

 

According to the World Health Organization, over 1.8 million people in Ethiopia are blind and 4.1 million live with low vision. However, a majority of them don’t go to school and about 80 percent of them cannot participate in economic activities. This is due to a combination of factors, but it is mainly a result of the social discrimination and isolation bestowed upon them as well as a lack of opportunities and resources provided by government agencies. This is a very alarming number as visual impairments are one of the most prevalent types of impairment in Ethiopia. And yet, most of the people affected by them don’t have any form of social assistance programs to support them.  For example, even though there are quite a few blind schools in Addis Ababa, encountering such schools in rural areas is very rare.

 

This means that an overwhelming majority of blind children in Ethiopia will not receive an education, and consequently, will not have a stepping stone into leading independent lives as adults. Therefore, we need to increase the government funding of these schools, in order to open more of them in places where they could be easily accessible to rural communities. We also need to make transportation more accessible for the visually impaired in order to alleviate the social and physical isolation that is faced by most of them. This can be done, for example, by putting directions that were written in braille, on the side of roads where they can be read by blind individuals. This has proven to be an effective strategy to give blind people the confidence to move around places in China.

 

Making these types of changes can make a big impact on the lives of impaired people. Increasing funding to autism, deaf and blind schools would make education easily accessible to a huge number of impaired children across Ethiopia. And an even more effective strategy to improving the education of these children would be to train teachers on the ESL and also on how to engage with and teach individuals with developmental or learning disorders. Aside from school, we need to make health care, transportation as well as employment more accessible for impaired people in order to prevent them from becoming disabled.  As a society, we have to make it our responsibility to teach those with negative superstitions, to unlearn these ways of thinking and become more inclusive towards them. And lastly, we all have to treat impaired or disabled people with kindness and respect in order to help them reach their true potential.