Disability is not Inability

:: Participation of people with intellectual disabilities in the electoral process.

Presentation by: Ms. Edah Maina – CEO, Kenya Society for the Mental Handicapped (KSMH).

Role of the government of Kenya.

1. Guarantee supported access to civic and political rights for persons with intellectual disabilities, and the opportunity to exercise their rights on equal basis with others.

2. Ensure that persons with intellectual disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life, through the support of their human readers. Including the right and opportunity to enjoy supported voting.

Who are persons with intellectual disabilities?

1. They are individuals with limitations in both intellectual functioning and adaptive skills. The disability is irreversible and can only be managed with a variety of life-long interventions and supported services of a human reader.

2. Comprehensive assessment by a multi-disciplinary team of specialists, reveals in an individual the different degrees and types of intellectual disabilities e.g. autism, downs syndrome, aspergers syndrome, dyslexia, severe cerebral palsy, brain damage, behavioral/emotional disorders etc.

3. The degree of an individual’s disability in both intellectual functioning and adaptive skills is further classified in four categories i.e. mild, moderate, severe, and profound. The categories determine the different measure of life-long support provided by human readers.

4. Persons with intellectual disabilities are completely different from those with mental illness (psychosocial disabilities).

:: Presentation by: Ms. Edah Maina – CEO, Kenya Society for the Mental Handicapped (KSMH).

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