During the Peer Counseling Workshop organised by the Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat Malaysia/Department of Social Welfare Malaysia (JKMM) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) from June 25 - 28 at the Institut Latihan Majlis Kebajikan dan Pembangunan Masyarakat Kebangsaan Malaysia (MAKPEM), I conducted two training sessions. One of the was “How to Overcome Oppression and Change Society.” Below is an excerpt of my presentation:

What is disability? Is a person disabled because he is paralysed, blind or deaf? A more correct term to use in explaining these conditions is impairment – physical impairment or mobility impairment, visual impairment, hearing and speech impairment.

Being impaired in those ways do no necessarily make one a disabled person.

Lets look at the need of a wheelchair user. If there are buildings that wheelchair users can get into conveniently; if there are toilets that are accessible – large enough to accommodate wheelchairs; if there is public transport that wheelchair users can use.

If these conditions are fulfilled, the wheelchair user is no longer disabled.

Disability is not about us. Disability is not about us being physically paralysed, blind, deaf or learning impaired.

Disability is about society that creates barriers that disable us. Disability is about society with attitudes that disable us.

Society views us as people with extra needs that create problems that require extra cost and effort to resolve when in actual fact society is not doing enough to fulfil these needs to empower us – disabled persons – as a citizen and part of society.

We all have experienced oppression in one way or another, or in many ways. We have learnt about self oppression, familial oppression and societal oppression.

With the understanding that we are disabled through no fault of our own, we should find ways to communicate this to society that we can lead an equally fulfilling life just like anybody else given the opportunity.