Disability is not Inability

:: socially proactive media...

The attention of the socially-proactive media and the support of regular on the 25th Nairobi City Council announced unequivocally that the hawkers’ demands would not be considered.

If no action is taken in the next weeks, there is word of a hunger-strike in the works for the PDSTO/ADSV.

As it stands, it seems the demonstration is already evolving into a hunger-strike. The protestors have no money, no food, and no shelter. They must sleep on the cold sidewalk during Nairobi’s brutal rainy season, when night temperatures can plummet to 10 degrees Celsius. For the duration of the demonstration their sole source of income is from civil society donations-usually amounting to no more than Kenya Sh. 1,000 (less than Canadian $20.00 per day for sixty protestors.

The PDSTO/ADSV urgently requests the financial and advisorial support of disabilities organizations in Canada, as well as of international civil society.

Until more support is received, it seems that the hawkers will have to beg to avoid begging for a living.

ADSV treasure Willys Indah observed, “There is a Chinese proverb that says a journey of a ten thousand steps begins with one step. We are on the tenth step today, and we have only 9990 to go.”

Locked in a life-and-death struggle with the government, the hawkers are unwilling participants in the growing disenchantment felt by many Kenyans for their political leadership. The hawkers only ask for a means to an honest living, but their actions are in fact giving voice and presence to the millions of Kenyans who live below the poverty line.

Paradoxically, the government becomes weaker with every day it stalls and the protestors grow stronger. As civil society slowly mobilizes to support its weakest (and perhaps strongest) member’s through donations of money, blankets, and even pro bono legal work, the promise for change grows. And as more groups like the PDSTO/ADSV speak out about social problems and create networks for cooperation with one another, the cry for justice swells.

The government can pave its roads. In the meantime, the people will pave the way to a new Kenya, a new Africa, and a new world.

The work of building something better continues on the sidewalk in front of the Nation Centre, in the cold under lowering skies, shivering and hungry, but dignified. The struggle lives…