Disabled persons must be proactive

Kenya is gearing up for the 2017 General Election. Kenyans living with disabilities are among the disadvantaged and marginalised in Kenya and must continuously use occasions such as the upcoming General Election to engage potential leaders and policy makers across the board with a view to ensuring their lot improves.

That begins with joining political parties and being part of the game. You cannot expect to benefit from what you are not part of as that will be political naivety on the part of Kenyans with disabilities.

Political consciousness and pragmatism are key in getting people with disabilities into the political and public arena where key decisions about planning and resources allocation are presided over.

Persons with disabilities must strategise, organise and plan on how best to influence party manifestoes so that respective parties can embrace and reflect their aspirations and needs in their blueprints.

It’s foolhardy to demand to know Jubilee or CORD’s agenda for you if you do not make a deliberate attempt to get those parties to know your real feelings, needs and challenges! Obviously this does not absolve parties from making every effort to embrace the aspirations of the disabled.

Some of the things Kenyans with disabilities must do include ensuring that they have identity cards, registering as voters, joining and registering in political parties as members and candidates for various offices. They can equally and carefully choose parties and serve in those parties as activists, volunteers and as elected leaders.

This sort of proactive participation will make their presence felt in political parties and make it near impossible for their agenda to be overlooked or ignored by party luminaries.

With goodwill and coordinated efforts from all stakeholders, one hopes to see the disability agenda not only clearly and coherently articulated in the upcoming manifestoes of the political parties, but real presence of disabled people in the electioneering and inclusion of their issues in subsequent government. Disabled Kenyans must play a part in bringing about all these, but must also support only those parties that clearly embrace and support their cause, no more empty rhetoric.