Inclusion Advocate: Jenifer Bonzie decries hostilities faced by physically challenged in Ghana

An inclusion activist and founder of the Vigilo Mobility Foundation Jenifer Mensah Bonzie has decried what she describes as a culture of neglect that continues to exclude persons with disability from full and equal participation in Ghanaian society.

On her return to Ghana, more than two decades after relocating to the United States of America in 1996, she is baffled by Ghanaian society, and the built environment remains largely unfriendly to Persons like herself.

Jenifer shared her deep concerns with GHONE NEWS when she led VIGILO to donate some 40 mobility aids to the Ghana Society for the Physically Disabled in the Ashanti Regional Capital Kumasi.

She bemoaned, “The culture we lack here is about diversity and inclusiveness. I cannot expect Ghana to rise from a one to a hundred, but we can start somewhere.

“At least some acceptance and acknowledgment and knowing that when we are all-inclusive, we all win. There is always ability in every disability,” she emphasized.

Encouraging the physically challenged at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium, she recounted how she was diagnosed with polio at the age of 3 and referred to the Orthopaedic Training Centre in Nsawam to learn to walk with mobility aids.

Jenifer narrated how her life hit a turning point when some advocates from the Netherlands and the United States of America came to her aid and supported her at a time when her family couldn’t afford her walking aid.

This year Vigilo Mobility Foundation reached out to four areas including Kumasi, the Muslim Community of NIMA in the Greater Accra Region, the Orthopaedic Training Centre which received items worth some US$20,000 and the Northern Regional Capital, Tamale where some 200 artisans and small business owners with disabilities are being impacted.

Apart from Ghana’s disability-unfriendly roads that gave the team A harrowing experience on the tour, a major issue that has gotten Jenifer disturbed is domestic air travel which has no provision for persons with disability; despite all the provisions in the Persons with Disability Act 715.

“There are no ramps for domestic flights. No matter how challenging your disability is, you must hop on that flight by pulling yourself. A flight attendant told me that is why they don’t sell flight tickets to the disabled.”

“There was a sixty-year-old woman with polio and recently diagnosed with cancer. They had this lady crawl with her palm on the floor onto the aircraft and crawl through the aisle to sit behind me. How cruel?” She asked.

Members on her team who joined her to Ghana have had it tough processing the difficulties persons with Disability face going about their daily commutes in Ghana.