Since the first case of corona infection was reporting in Kenya on Thursday 12th March 2020, the Kenyan Government embarked on putting up restrictions and measures in an effort to curb the spread of the virus, for instance it imposed lock down, cessation of movement either within or outside Counties, social distancing, wearing of mask, washing hands, working from home for those employed etc etc; despite all these measures being well thought and done out of good will to safe citizens lives, persons with disabilities felt that they were left aside and discriminated in most of these mitigation measures, hence they felt isolated; in your own views, what different do you think the Government could have done well, then or now to also support persons with disabilities stay safe during the pandemic? what are some of the challenges did you face as a person with disabilities in accessing Government support to counter the effects of covid-19?
Covid-19 is a global pandemic that has heightened the global challenges and highlighted the difficulties faced. For people with disabilities, the pandemic has accelerated their challenges and worsened their living conditions. This is both a positive and negative aspect - the negative is people with disabilities were forgotten in the relief support and the positive is the pandemic exposed some of the gaps in the systems that serve people with disabilities- with the pandemic, we were able to identify what works and does not work thus advocacy increased.
The government were quick and responsive, and we appreciate the efforts that the different government bodies - ministry of health, ministry of social protection, and other took to ensure people with disabilities. The government was also very responsive, once given feedback on a certain matter by advocates with disabilities. For example, Press conferences with sign language interpreters - which was immediately actualized.
The main thing that government could have done (and still can do) differently would be engaging and consulting with people with disabilities and organizations for people with disabilities when making relevant decisions and taking measures to ensure people with disabilities are supported.
Engagements and Consultations would guide and have more impact because they would come from a perspective of experience and knowledge from people with disabilities. Instead from a place of limited knowledge and understanding. This would ensure the decision making process is inclusive and the decisions are suitable for everyone.
Persons with hearing impairment had challenges with communication because some of them largely depend on lip reading due to the large number of the society in Kenya don't know sign language and yet the mouth was covered by the mask.
Learners with disabilities had challenges catching up with online learning since many "special schools" did not have infrastructure to support online learners with disabilities.
look, I come from a community where access to important things like handwashing services was a big problem because of no clean water. Masks were expensive on the onset of the pandemic and because of limited space, social distance was hard to observe because the population. A huge challenge I faced is that getting covid-19 test has been expensive for the last one year but I hope the government will ensure it fees is subsidized for the common mwananchi. Now think of this, if testing for covid-19 is problematic in my area, what of getting the vaccine?