As part of raising awareness, the Directorate Gender, Youth and Disability Mainstreaming had an information sharing session with colleagues from the Head Office.
Outlining the purpose of the session, Leonie Van der Merwe, Director for the unit that hosted session, spoke of the importance of understanding this sector. Van der Merwe also highlighted that the scourge of gender based violence also affect women with disability.
"Women in general are most affected by violence. As we celebrated Women's Month in August, every second day there was either a child or woman who was raped and or murdered. Women with disability are not excluded from this, however it is more challenging as they four times more vulnerable due to many factors such as not being able to access services due to mobility.
This eye-opening session had several speakers who related their day to day challenges as people with disabilities which included those who are Visually impaired, Deaf, Dyslexic and Wheel chair Users. Factors such as inappropriate tools of trade, infrastructure and non-suitable communication channels continue to be barriers in the work place.
The session was also graced by the reigning Ms. Deaf SA, who is also a Director at DEAF-SA, Ms Judith Madi.
Madi continue to shine and inspires hope to the deaf community. She said she was not born deaf, but diagnosed with meningitis at the age of 8 and has since made peace with it as she is living and managing her condition. Madi also reiterated some of the challenges faced by the deaf community. This included access to Institutions of Higher learning such as universities. She further indicated that despites their disabilities, people in this sector continue to shine and she is an example of that.
The session was informative and assisted colleagues in understating more about the sector.