November 21, 2007
By Lesego Madumo
SOCIAL concerns of disabled persons will be highlighted during a two-day Disability Festival, which starts off at Museum Africa, in Newtown, on Friday, 23 November.
The festival is hosted by the City's department of community development and will be opened by Steven Sack, the City's director of arts, culture, and heritage services. It is the second time that the City is running the festival. The City is considering making it an annual event.
More than 175 disabled people are expected to attend from Harvey Cohen School, Nokuthula Home in Alexandra, the Adelaide Tambo School, the Johannesburg Council for the Disabled from Lenasia and the Hamlet Foundation, among other facilities.
The event is engineered to promote creativity and independence among disabled people, while bolstering their dignity. In turn, the community is encouraged to include disabled people in their social groups. Social issues that affect the disabled will be raised, and ways will be sought to increase their participation in social events, says Irene Mafune, its project manager.
Mafune says disabled people are often excluded from public events; they are also sidelined socially. This is something the City needs to change. "We need to be inclusive as the City and expose disabled people to opportunities that are available to them outside their institutions."
She says the City has several programmes to deal with these social disparities. "Disabled people should try to make contact with the City to find out what programmes are available to assist them."
They should be informed about the City's spirit of cultural integration. "There will be information and educational stalls available [at the festival] for them to read and learn more about their conditions." The exercise will help them to interact with others and expose them to cultural and educational facilities in the city.
Activities at the festival will include drumming, gumboot and ballroom dancing, Indian dance and a choral performance by the Hamlet Foundation. Mafune encourages people to come and witness the talents and capabilities of disabled people.
The Agulhas Theatre Works (ATW), founded by Gladys Agulhas, an award-winning dancer and choreographer, will also perform. Agulhas is an internationally recognised choreographer who works with disabled dancers.
Poet Mac Manaka will be the master of ceremonies, and he is expected to recite one of his poems. Manaka was disabled in a car accident, "but the art he creates is an inspiration to audiences".
A host of other activities are scheduled to take place at Mary Fitzgerald Square on Saturday, 24 November. Disabled schoolchildren from across the province will be ferried to the venue for the fun.
On that day, wheelchair basketball matches will be played, fairytales will be read, and there will be a dance competition. ATW, which features talented dancer Dilano Maritz, will perform. "Maritz's achievements in dance are even more impressive considering that he is deaf and has never heard the music that he rehearses and performs to," Mafune says.
ATW will work with theatre practitioner and puppeteer Stacey Rozen, who "inspires" the children to develop artwork in the form of puppets. "Through puppets the children are not differentiated into able-bodied and disabled participants but are all united as artists and performers."
The Disability Festival is a partnership between the department of human development, sports, and recreation; the Johannesburg Zoo; Joburg Water; the Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market; ATW; Museum Africa; Revlon and Woolworths.
The City acknowledges November as the Month of the Child, in which the importance of developing and nurturing user-friendly environments for disabled persons is under the spotlight. Its Human Development Strategy [PDF] recognises that all people are equal and are its greatest asset; they need to be supported and encouraged to realise their full potential.
International Day of Disabled Persons is marked on 3 December. It has been reserved for raising awareness about people with disabilities and to work towards equal opportunities and integration into society. The World Programme of Action, a body that plans to improve disability prevention, rehabilitation, and equalisation of opportunities, and emphasises the need to approach disability from a human rights perspective, adopted the day in 1982.
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