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What story would you tell if you were to wake up one day to learn that you are now disabled?

As I lay on the hospital bed, I received the most shocking and unexpected news ever when a doctor told me I had complete spinal cord injury with ASIA. A thoracic vertebrae T9 and T10 had been crushed leaving the spinal cord severely compressed. 

He then went on to say that due to the spinal cord decompression, surgery had to be done which included some fusion from T8 to T12.  However, despite all these procedures I would have to be confined to a wheelchair all my life. This brought a chill down my spine, crushing all my hopes and desires for a brighter and sustainable future for as I saw myself as someone of no good use.

Born in a remote village in Nkayi, I attended school like everybody else going as far as Ordinary Level. Soon after, I proceeded to do my teacher’s training at the United College of Education where I specialised in Primary Education. Barely three years after qualifying as a teacher, when I was a second-year university student at Solusi, the unforeseen happened on the dreadful evening of December 9, 2018 while on an official visit. 

I found myself in an accident as the car hit a cow at Umguza bridge along the Bulawayo-Harare Road, Mahatshula flyover. This was not just a day that changed my life but the beginning of real struggle. 

After the surgery, I had to adapt to my disability and learn everything I could in a relatively short period of time. Due to the total loss of control of bladder and bowel management, I had to learn how to effectively cope with this new condition. Apart from that, I had to fully acclimatise with disability issues – after all it was a new world for me. 

Not even once did I find myself advocating and championing for disability issues let alone take the time to befriend or socialise with people living with disabilities just so I understand how it is to live life with a disability and possibly engage in initiatives that could bring some change. 

Although I met people living with disabilities in church or in the society in general, I just never took it upon myself to learn more about it. I had no dislike for such people but it didn’t matter nor did I have any intention to know more about it until life taught me a practical lesson that disability is everyone’s business. 

After having fully accepted that this injury was now permanent, I then gathered courage to meet other people living with disabilities and begin to learn from them. I even joined social media platforms where disability issues are discussed so that I become better informed on how it is to be disabled, including the day to day challenges that come with being physically challenged. 

I needed to learn how to stand up for myself through self-representation and knowing my human rights. Various published articles in which disability rights activists advocate for enactment of laws to help people living with disabilities to perform effectively and contribute enormously to the society shed some light as it meant I now had a duty and a role to play more than ever towards the realisation of an equitable society that’s non-gender conforming and an enabling one for all despite physical impairment.

It is only now that I concur with people like Honourable Joshua Malinga who is a Special Advisor in the President’s Office, Honourable Watson Khupe the Senator representating people with disabilities and other disability rights activists like Mr Tsepang Nare who have continuously been instrumental as far as disability issues are concerned. The sole mandate being to ensure that the rights of people living with disabilities are observed and respected which subsequently results in them operating at an equal level with those who do not have disabilities. This is evident through the draft of the National Disability Policy, the Draft Bill and the petition submitted by Mr Nare in relation to disability user friendly buses.

People with disabilities face a myriad of challenges which are economically and socially connected. Indeed, the statement that says the future belongs to all who prepare for it is true as this is validated by what I have witnessed since the accident.

Back then, I could travel with great ease yet the freedom I once had while I was able bodied turned into one characterised by constraints upon becoming disabled. This is because of the extra fares I am charged whenever I’m travelling because wherever I go, I go with my assistant as such I have to pay for my wheelchair, the assistant and myself. There are a couple of incidents when kombis have left me because I use a wheelchair. At that very moment I then asked myself what story I would have told had I done things differently in standing for the disabled community.

I therefore urge all citizens to have a changed mindset in relation to disability issues. To take it upon themselves even when they have no impairment by being at the forefront as far as influencing change because it is those little efforts that make a huge difference.