By Robert A. Emmanuel
Disability Studies researcher, Dr Kwasi Tonge is hoping his studies would lead to policy changes that could improve the lives of disabled individuals.
Dr Tonge, who is employed as the learning support and IT Officer at the UWI Five Islands Campus, spoke on Observer AM about his research paper on the social model of disability.
“The social model looks at how we treat people, for example, social discrimination can physical discrimination or verbal discrimination, we also look at how persons facing discrimination intertwine amongst themselves and look at the physical aspects of society, building construction, infrastructure and how persons with disability manoeuvre among society,” he said.
Dr Tonge said his research was extremely personal for him due to a spinal injury that has affected him prior to his studies.
He referenced his experiences watching the discrimination of disabled persons on a university campus where, prior to his PhD studies, he suffered from a long-term spinal injury.
He noted that the most important finding from his studies were the various ways disabled persons were discriminated against, including educational, health and gender discrimination.
“One of my participants, she wanted to have a family, but she was a wheelchair user and she thought that she was of age to have a child and got into a relationship and persons started to discriminate against her and her partner,” he said.
He said the key facet of the study was the idea of independence for disabled individuals and “society understanding what persons with disabilities go through”.
Dr Tonge said that he would be requesting a meeting with the Cabinet to make recommendations based on his study including the establishment of a disability tribunal, having a disabled person sit on the board of the Development Control Authority (DCA) as well as school boards across the island.
“I am hoping that, at some point, get an audience with the Cabinet … if some of my recommendations are taken on board … over time, we will see a vast change in society,” he said.
