Visually impaired, blind and disabled citizens at the department of social development. Photo: Reitumetse Mahope
Members of Blind South Africa joined visually impaired and disabled protesters in the streets of the Pretoria’s CBD on Monday to voice their frustrations at government departments and businesses.
The protesters, from various parts of the Tshwane district, Madibeng and Mpumalanga, gathered at Church Square, before heading to the Department of Social Development to hand over their demands.
“We want people who are visually impaired or disabled to be considered for job opportunities instead of simply being recipients of handouts in the form of grant money or food parcels,” said Johannes Mahlangu of the Critical and Creative non-profit organisation.
Mahlangu said many disabled and visually impaired people had children of their own they take care of.
“We have children to raise and one cannot raise, let’s say, five children with a disability grant of R2 000.
“It is high time the government treated us like other people and offered us jobs too. We want jobs. We want to play a role in the economy of our country because we are also skilled and have qualifications,” said Mahlangu.
“However, we cannot use these skills anywhere.”
He said there were “tons of jobs” they could be considered for, such as receptionists.
Alternatively, the metro could help them in creating safe spaces for them to operate businesses.
“We want to be empowered and move away from welfare. We want to earn salaries and benefits What will happen to our children if we die today?”
He said often many disabled, visually impaired and blind people were shunned by the community while living in poverty.
Mahlangu said jobs were the only thing that could ensure a brighter future for their children.
He said furthermore that government should help with grants for the disabled’s children.
“Blind SA has a bursary for such children, but I have not heard of any by the government. This march isn’t for ourselves, but our children.”
Mahlangu said he feared their children would have no future.
Blind SA CEO Jace Nair said the government had not done enough to ensure job creation.
“The public sector has not even reached their targets from 1997,” Nair claimed.
He said the target for hiring disabled and blind citizens was increased to 7%.
“Both local and national government have not even reached this target, nor have they reached more than 1.5%. Even worse is our private sector companies, whereby very few have even reached 1%.”
He said more companies and government must begin employing the disabled and blind.
“We as Blind SA started training about 20 people in business development so these people can start their own businesses and eventually earn a salary.”
Critical and Creative’s memorandum was handed to the department, which was given until 1 December to respond to its demands.
This article first appeared on Rekord and was republished with permission.
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