The Siyasizana Community Development Program Helps the Physically Challenged in South Africa

Understandably so, many of us would rather not want to deal with the challenges that come with a physical disability. But even though I am disabled as a C5/C6 quadriplegic and have to deal with a lot of those challenges, I consider myself lucky that I live in a country like the US where a lot of progress has been made during the past few decades to improve the quality of life of people with a physical disability. I often wonder what it must be like to live in a country where disability awareness is far behind compared to in the US and where social programs for the disabled are almost nonexistent. I have heard stories of children with a mobility disability living in developing countries that don’t even have access to a basic manual wheelchair. I cannot imagine what that would be like!

Therefore I have a lot of respect for the people who dedicate their lives to improve the situation in countries where the disability movement still has a long way to go. In that spirit I would like to dedicate this post to John Shelembe who recently got in touch with Disabled and Productive and who started an NGO in South Africa, the Siyasizana Community Development program, to help and motivate the physically disabled and other disadvantaged. While I checked out their website, I ran into an inspiring story about a woman living in South Africa who was told she would never be able to hold a job in the open market because of her severe disability and due to her determination proved everyone wrong. You can read the entire story at John’s site. Feel free to check it out.