Members and supporters of the Stellenbosch Disability Network (SDN) took to the streets of Stellenbosch to celebrate the rights and lives of people with disabilities on Saturday (19 November).
The event also aimed to highlight the continued struggle against exclusion and inaccessibility.
Close to 300 people joined the fourth annual Walk with Disability campaign and took up the call for the Stellenbosch mayor, Advocate Gesie van Deventer, to be more responsive and take deliberate action to increase accessibility for people with disabilities to all environments and opportunities.
The annual walk falls within national Disability Rights Month, which concludes with International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Saturday 3 December.
Stellenbosch is home to around 8 000 people with disabilities, but its communities, schools, town and places of work remain largely inaccessible and out of reach for most people with disabilities.
The walk concluded with the handing over of a memorandum to Councillor Charles Manuel, who received the document on behalf of the mayor. There has been no formal response to any of the SDN’s previous memorandums to the mayor in the past.
The network has raised its concerns and offered reasonable suggestions in each of these memorandums, but it still awaits any response from Stellenbosch Municipality.
This year’s memorandum thanks the municipality for its efforts to engage with the disability sector, but also reminds it that no real progress has been made in the implementation of its policies, most notably the newly updated and approved Universal Access Policy of 2021.
In the memorandum, 11 practical recommendations are made for the municipality to start systematically increasing its efforts towards ensuring disability inclusion and universal access.
With events such as this walk, but also through public participation and other initiatives, the network will ensure the concerns of the disability sector are heard in the coming year.
The time for policy that remains on paper is over, disability activists say. It is imperative that the call to action continue and the municipality start being more responsive and deliberately plan and implement its policies to ensure inclusion and opportunities for all within its bounds.
.
Dr Cindy Wiggett-Barnard is the CEO of ChangeAbility and chairperson of the SDN.
