Disability is not Inability

:: Understanding Disability Environment, Voting and Electoral Process– David Wanjama, Secretary General, Disabled Voters Alliance of Kenya

David began his presentation by giving a background into physical disability and the difficulties they face in general. He provided the participants with information on hindrances they faced in accessing voter education including having inadequate education; inaccessibility of areas where voter education was being carried out;

distance of learning centres;

people’s attitudes towards the education;

cultural beliefs;

lack of government commitment - even those designated to work with PWDs, e.g. the commissioner of social services, do not seem to do much; and misuse of disability such that when funds are raised for voter or civic education, the funds are diverted due to nepotism and corruption, thus denying persons of disability opportunities.

He then summarized the problems persons with physical disability face during the voting period. This included the occurrence of violence during campaigns and elections, ensuring PWDs kept away; polling personnel’s ignorance and insensitivity; being locked out at the initial stages due to lack of identity cards and voter cards and lack of assistance by care givers to those with severe disabilities due to insensitivity.


David wound up his presentation by listing actions to be taken to ensure PWDs’ full participation in the electoral process. He appealed for increased resources from the government, donors and civil society organizations to ensure PWDs get education in a manner they can understand.

He went on to recommend that polling personnel be well trained; ECK to ensure polling stations were accessible, employ PWDs as polling officers and commissioners and provide for house to house voter registration; the government to eliminate violence in the election period and increase in capacity of DPOs. He concluded by imploring DPOs not to divert funds and PWDs to refuse to be used to raise funds which would ultimately not benefit them.


Plenary

After the various DPO representatives’ presentations’ participants were given an opportunity to share their views, opinions and queries.

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