Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
Accra Daily Mail - Online
It is very disheartening that the nation still continues to discriminate against people with disabilities. There has always been discrimination against disabled people and less favorable treatment of people suffering from mental or physical disabilities. People with disabilities have been consistently discriminated against both in employment and in other areas of life.
At the congregation ceremony of Takoradi Polytechnic last Saturday, one Oti Amparbeng Godwin was mentioned as the only deaf graduate among those awarded on the day. My investigations revealed that he studied Furniture Design and Production. I was later told that it was the first time in the history of polytechnic education in Ghana that a deaf student had successfully completed that course.
Oti Amparbeng Godwin received the third highest Grade Point Average (GPA) among all those who read the course for 2005! This was not doubted by his former course mates this writer spoke to. In fact, he was one of the very few people who were awarded with the enviable Second Class Upper Division!
Surprisingly, none of the media houses did mention any part of this wonderful feat in their reports. One begins to wonder the sort of information reporters look for when they go for their assignments. From the Ghana News Agency through to Ghana Broadcasting Corporation no one saw this as news.
Is news not an unexpected information or a new information about specific and timely events? Who says it was not news-worthy for a deaf person to complete polytechnic education in Ghana? I was happy to hear that the Ghana Education Service provided facilitators for him; yet the polytechnic could not indicate any thing about his graduation on the day. It was a sad day for disability.
I was even expecting the sector Minister who represented the President to comment or to embrace him but Oti just received an ordinary handshake and quietly went back to his seat amidst cheers from the stands which he could not hear. Too bad! Thanks to some two women, probably his relatives who joined him in his sitting area.
Further information about this wonderful boy revealed that he was the leading striker for the national deaf team, the Black Wonders, which represented Africa in the World Deaflympic Games in Australia last year.
Despite legislative efforts, discrimination against disabled workers is everywhere. A recent report in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that a quarter of the disabled workers surveyed had experienced social and economic discrimination since 1990, and the worst hit were those suffering from psychological problems, such as depression or shyness.
All too often able-bodied people just assume disabled people can't do things and don't give them a chance to prove otherwise. There are computer programmers and solicitors who are blind and actors and MPs who are deaf. There are athletes who race marathons in wheelchairs and scientists who have cerebral palsy.
But often if you have cerebral palsy you still get called a spastic and if you are in a wheelchair the odds are you'll get stared at. People who are blind or deaf have to deal with being ignored or patronised time after time. Able-bodied people still show surprise at the idea that disabled people might have a career or have sex or have children or get drunk or argue back or drive a car
What happened to Oti was an action based on prejudice resulting in his unfair treatment To discriminate physically, is to make a distinction between people on the basis of the visible self or category without regard to individual merit. People with disabilities have to constantly face discrimination in all levels of society.
The 1975 United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons is critical on such careless neglect of matters concerning disabled persons. It requires disabled persons to be entitled to have their special needs catered for by the state and employers. It looks to disabled persons to be protected against all exploitation, all regulations and all treatment of a discriminatory, abusive or degrading nature.
It is time we began giving better attention to issues concerning the physically challenged. For the past 20year less than 20 deaf students have progressed beyond secondary school level. It is a fact. Since the introduction of educational reforms, not more than five deaf students pass English language at the secondary level in a year in the whole of Ghana. That is also a fact. But no one cares.
Let us all show concern by assisting disabled persons to develop their abilities in the most varied fields of activities and of promoting their integration as far as possible in normal life.
By O. Asirifi Mensah Joseph, Aggrey Memorial Zion School, Cape Coast
It is very disheartening that the nation still continues to discriminate against people with disabilities. There has always been discrimination against disabled people and less favorable treatment of people suffering from mental or physical disabilities. People with disabilities have been consistently discriminated against both in employment and in other areas of life.
At the congregation ceremony of Takoradi Polytechnic last Saturday, one Oti Amparbeng Godwin was mentioned as the only deaf graduate among those awarded on the day. My investigations revealed that he studied Furniture Design and Production. I was later told that it was the first time in the history of polytechnic education in Ghana that a deaf student had successfully completed that course.
Oti Amparbeng Godwin received the third highest Grade Point Average (GPA) among all those who read the course for 2005! This was not doubted by his former course mates this writer spoke to. In fact, he was one of the very few people who were awarded with the enviable Second Class Upper Division!
Surprisingly, none of the media houses did mention any part of this wonderful feat in their reports. One begins to wonder the sort of information reporters look for when they go for their assignments. From the Ghana News Agency through to Ghana Broadcasting Corporation no one saw this as news.
Is news not an unexpected information or a new information about specific and timely events? Who says it was not news-worthy for a deaf person to complete polytechnic education in Ghana? I was happy to hear that the Ghana Education Service provided facilitators for him; yet the polytechnic could not indicate any thing about his graduation on the day. It was a sad day for disability.
I was even expecting the sector Minister who represented the President to comment or to embrace him but Oti just received an ordinary handshake and quietly went back to his seat amidst cheers from the stands which he could not hear. Too bad! Thanks to some two women, probably his relatives who joined him in his sitting area.
Further information about this wonderful boy revealed that he was the leading striker for the national deaf team, the Black Wonders, which represented Africa in the World Deaflympic Games in Australia last year.
Despite legislative efforts, discrimination against disabled workers is everywhere. A recent report in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that a quarter of the disabled workers surveyed had experienced social and economic discrimination since 1990, and the worst hit were those suffering from psychological problems, such as depression or shyness.
All too often able-bodied people just assume disabled people can't do things and don't give them a chance to prove otherwise. There are computer programmers and solicitors who are blind and actors and MPs who are deaf. There are athletes who race marathons in wheelchairs and scientists who have cerebral palsy.
But often if you have cerebral palsy you still get called a spastic and if you are in a wheelchair the odds are you'll get stared at. People who are blind or deaf have to deal with being ignored or patronised time after time. Able-bodied people still show surprise at the idea that disabled people might have a career or have sex or have children or get drunk or argue back or drive a car
What happened to Oti was an action based on prejudice resulting in his unfair treatment To discriminate physically, is to make a distinction between people on the basis of the visible self or category without regard to individual merit. People with disabilities have to constantly face discrimination in all levels of society.
The 1975 United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons is critical on such careless neglect of matters concerning disabled persons. It requires disabled persons to be entitled to have their special needs catered for by the state and employers. It looks to disabled persons to be protected against all exploitation, all regulations and all treatment of a discriminatory, abusive or degrading nature.
It is time we began giving better attention to issues concerning the physically challenged. For the past 20year less than 20 deaf students have progressed beyond secondary school level. It is a fact. Since the introduction of educational reforms, not more than five deaf students pass English language at the secondary level in a year in the whole of Ghana. That is also a fact. But no one cares.
Let us all show concern by assisting disabled persons to develop their abilities in the most varied fields of activities and of promoting their integration as far as possible in normal life.
By O. Asirifi Mensah Joseph, Aggrey Memorial Zion School, Cape Coast