MOSES TOVOR
Our feature Butterfly. Moses Tovor is an instructor of tailoring at the Accra Rehab Centre in Ghana. Butterfly Africa talks to him and hears his inspirational story.
Moses is a young, bright, passionate and extremely articulate man whom Butterfly Africa was privileged to meet recently at the centre where he is employed as an instructor on behalf of the department of social welfare in Accra.
Moses also has a disability – he uses a wheel chair. When as an infant Moses contracted polio, it was his mother’s singular faith in him as a person and her beloved child that sustained his own innate spirit to overcome the limitations of the disability and achieve his potential. “You can do anything Moses. I know you can make it” she would tell him, in spite of the fact all of society including many in his family had written him off as disabled and therefore condemned to a life of dependency. Thank God for mothers like Moses’s who buck the trend and retain their faith in their children when none other does. His mother exemplifies the importance of parental support for all children, regardless of their circumstances.
Today Moses, who successfully ran his own business before going into lecturing, proudly informs us that “I depend on no one… society will limit you if you allow it to do so.”
For the future Moses would like to see definite moves by government to protect the wellbeing of young people with disabilities. He would like to see the recently enacted disability law enforced and people prosecuted for its violation. He would like to see a built environment that is inclusive – that is, public buildings and other spaces that are built to enable access by every human being in Ghana. It is simply the right of people with disabilities to have access to what their contemporaries in their society take for granted. Moses sees awareness raising and educating the public as key in any attempt to change the mindset of society towards disability. The slogan “disability not inability” needs to become something other than a slogan. It must come alive and therefore become the commitment of every Ghanaian to root out any discrimination and stigma associated with disability.
Government has an important role to play in this drive for inclusion, not least by opening up more education and employment opportunities for those with a disability. This means that schools and all institutions of learning are able to respond to the special needs of people with disabilities. Additionally it means not only making jobs available, but also making it easy for people with disabilities to actually work in the workplace environment through appropriate modification or by putting certain structures in place. For example this could include computers adapted for blind people or appropriate ramps or lifts for those in a wheel chair. Whatever the modification needed, it should be the commitment of the public and private sectors to provide these and help rid society of a debilitating and dehumanizing view point.
And the last word to Moses, “God has guided me each step of the way to where I am now. There remains much I intend to achieve… I must fight for people like me who have had, and continue to have, their lives turned upside down and their potential damaged because of events totally outside their control.”
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