As a country or a people, have we for once pondered over the following questions?
How accessible and friendly are our public institutions and indispensable private establishments to the physically challenged or the differently abled members of society?
Do our schools, health facilities, banks, etc. cater for some of us when they are being built?
Are parents, families, households and communities oblivious of their innate potentials and talents?
Can society afford to continue wallowing in age-old stereotypes that tend to be derogatory, degrading, downgrading,and discriminatory to persons with disabilities?
Do we accord our children equal opportunities irrespective of the look on the outside?
Are we the kind that distinguish between their physicality when deciding who goes to school or not?
Must we allow our judgement to be clouded by some stone age prejudice?
How about job opportunities?
Are we staying true to the principle of fair treatment or that immortal declaration ” All are equal in the eyes of God”?
Who gets hired and who gets snubbed?
The one in control of his/her faculties or who?
Is it about ability, capability or physicality?
And then comes the question of sign languages
How often do we make use of them in public discourse (parliament especially) and gatherings requiring the views of all?
What about news and other content on TV?
How do some of us get to decipher their meaning?
What sort of language do we use when referring to the differently abled?
Are they indeed disabled or they are persons with disabilities?
In the end, who among us is not without one form of disability or the other?
I beseech your help in providing answers to these questions…
