While South Africa has developed strong policies for persons with disabilities, a significant failure to implement them is leaving thousands, particularly children, without access to basic education and services, a leading advocate said yesterday.
Andre Hofmeyer, the Project Lead of D20 for the National Council of and for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD), voiced his concerns at the annual Nappy Fun Run, Walk or Wheel event held at the Johannesburg Zoo. The national campaign aims to raise awareness and collect nappy donations for children and adults with disabilities.
Speaking on the sidelines of the vibrant event, Hofmeyer affirmed the quality of the country’s policy framework.
“I think our country is blessed with very, very good policy,” Hofmeyer stated. “There’s a lot of documentation, guidance that are being given to departments… and I think our biggest, biggest challenge and struggle is to what degree are these policies being implemented and monitored.”
He highlighted the dire consequences of this implementation gap, pointing to children in deep rural areas like the Eastern Cape who are unable to attend school.
“You find that kids living with disabilities still don’t have access to go to school. They’re sitting at home which then puts pressure on them, on the parent not to be able to work but to then take care of the child with that limited support,” Hofmeyer explained.
To underscore the problem, he shared a recent anecdote from a school in Umtata that was reportedly renovated by the department to improve accessibility.
“I was very excited to go and to observe this improvement. It hasn’t happened,” he said. “The sleeping halls are renovated but when you go to the bathrooms it’s still not accessible.”
Hofmeyer described having to physically assist a child at the school for physically disabled children to use the toilet—a task the child’s friends and carers must now manage in his absence.
“If the department and if the school and the facilities were just made accessible with proper [fixtures] and things that are needed, then we know what is needed,” he asserted. “If one really is true to what our policies require of us and implementing universal design, then these things can become more accessible, more children can access schools.”
Hofmeyer concluded by stressing the scale of the issue, noting that there are “thousands of children in our country who are at home because there’s no place and there are no accessible schools around.”
The NCPD’s event yesterday served as a dual reminder: of the ongoing need for basic donation drives for the disability community, and of the larger, systemic failure to turn written government policy into tangible, life-changing reality.