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Reflections on a visit to Chancellor College, University of Malawi as part of the Disability Rights Law Schools Project

When we turned off the main tarmac road into the villages, we were faced with a rocky dirt road. For a while it seemed like our car was no match for the rugged terrain with the wheels churning a huge spray of dust and the engine struggling and coughing violently as we chugged along. Shortly thereafter, we crossed a narrow bridge and with a spirited lurch we were on our way. The bumpy and long drive through scattered mud huts, grazing goats and waving children brought us to our destination, Ntungulutsi Primary School in Chingale. We were greeted by the sight of school children singing and dancing, their laughter filling the air as their parents chatted away.

My colleague Adebayo Okeowo and I had come to witness the community outreach activities being undertaken to raise awareness of disability rights by staff and students from the Chancellor College, University of Malawi. If there is anything to be said about the Centre for Human Rights, it is that we are travelling people. We cross villages, towns, cities, nations and continents to promote human rights.

As we made our way to our seats under a small tent set up for us and the community leaders I felt conflicted. I was delighted that the entire community, it would seem, had come to attend the outreach but was also dismayed that these community members would have to sit on the hard ground, exposed to the harsh unyielding sun as they listened to the message.

Through song, dance, poetry, drama and personal stories the students from Chancellor College and Ntungulutsi Primary School portrayed the issues affecting children with disabilities in the community. The students from Chancellor College in discussions with the community leaders in the weeks preceding the outreach discovered that many children with disabilities in the community continue to be excluded from accessing education. As many as 11 children with disabilities of school going age from that village were not in school. There were concerns raised that some caregivers were abusive forcing children with disabilities to engage in begging.

The students used the platform to educate their community about the right of children with disabilities to inclusive education on an equal basis with others; the communities’ obligation to protect children with disabilities from exploitation, violence and abuse within the family, school and community and the need to eliminate harmful practices and beliefs that endangered children with disabilities. We watched enthralled as this handful of students brought home the rights in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to this small rural community. The applause, laughter, hushed whispers, sighs and loud groans that punctuated the afternoon assured us that the message had been heard.

The sun had set by the time we started our slow journey back. As I watched Adebayo take pictures of the school children waving at us as we drove away, I was reminded of Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous remarks delivered at the United Nations in New York on 27 March, 1958 and how relevant her remarks were to disability rights.

“Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

Chancellor College, Malawi is one of the universities in Disability Rights and Law Schools Project Network. The Centre for Human Rights with the support of Open Society Foundation coordinates the network whose objective is to advance disability rights through higher education The story is written by the project coordinator Innocentia Mgijima-Konopi during a 3 day visit to Chancellor College Malawi in November.

For more information on the Disability Rights and Law Schools Project and the network contact:
Innocentia Mgijima-Konopi
Project Coordinator: Disability Rights and Law Schools Programme
Tel: +27 (0) 12 420 4531
Cell: +27 (0) 61 473 2638
Email: Innocentia.Mgijima@up.ac.za