UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN
Disability Service
Annual Report
July 2009 to December 2010
All documentation produced by the Disability Service is available in enlarged text, audio, Braille and e-text on request
Vision
To establish a human rights culture at UCT with a special emphasis on disability.
To act within the University structures, providing advice and support both in terms of harnessing mainstream capabilities for the accommodation of people with disabilities, as well as providing specialist services where mainstreaming is not possible. To provide academically deserving disabled people with the opportunity for a fair and equal educational and work experience.
To be the sounding board, knowledge base and benchmark which deliver to the University the capacity to interact appropriately with students, staff, prospective students and visitors with disabilities.
Annual report 2009-2010
Dear Valued Friends and Colleagues
My maternal grandfather was by all accounts “‘n regte ou korrelkop.”. One of his mantras, when a son or son-in-law foolishly reported some small achievement was to say: “Self-praising’s no recommendation!”. Well, even though boasting does not come naturally to me, it gives me enormous pleasure to catalogue in this annual update to colleagues and donors, important achievements and milestones for the Disability Service.
The Disability Service has just been incorporated into a new Transformation Services Office, located organisationally in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor. This is an important achievement, for the University as well as, I would like to think, for the Disability Service. I believe that years of strategic lobbying has been instrumental in the University Executive recognizing that disability deserves its rightful place next to race and gender, as a social justice issue - and intersects with both of these in crucial ways. We look forward to even greater opportunities for advocacy and service delivery to staff and students with disability in particular, and the University community in general.
Before looking at 2010, let’s just catch up on some of the events of the second semester in 2009.
Reinette Popplestone
Manager: Disability Service
Transformation Services Office
University of Cape Town
Tel: (021) 650 5090
Cell: 083-647 0703
Fax: (021) 650 3794
Email:
Web: www.uct.ac.za/services/disability
Look at me Exhibition
Readers may recall my announcing in a previous report the birth of the DSM – Disabled Students’ Movement. Their number was small, but they pulled off an ambitious and successful advocacy event. The month of August is traditionally transformation month. With that in mind, and having gone to see the Look at me! exhibition staged at the ArtsCape they resolved that it should be hosted at UCT, and they set about doing the significant amount of work it took to get the exhibition mounted. All I had to do was sign the purchase order to pay for the mounting and dismantling of the exhibition – the students did the rest.
The exhibition is based on a coffee table book, originally published by Genugtig Press, and the brain child of Marlene Leroux. A second edition was sponsored by Absa earlier this year.
The launch of the exhibition took place on 2 August 2009. We were privileged to have Marlene Leroux as guest speaker. The exhibition, round which we held several seminars and advocacy initiatives, hung in the African Studies Gallery for the month of August and into September.
Photos: Michelle Botha (2009 UCT graduate and DSM chairperson) entertains the guests
Reinette Popplestone (second from left) and Marlene LeRoux (third from left) with fellow guests
Graduation
13 Students with disabilities graduated either in June or December 2009, among them Michelle Botha who is visually impaired and received her degree with a distinction in English and Paula Jackson who has a back injury and about whom we wrote in our last report. Paula attained her Bachelor of Arts in Historical Studies (Honours) First Class. Terry Buttrick who is visually impaired attained a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) in Economics, and Jobo Raswoko who is blind attained a Master of Laws in Commercial Law
Photo: Michelle Botha is capped to receive her BSocSci degree with a distinction in English. Her guide dog Emma accompanied her on stage.
The Lab - Volunteers and Exams
by Denise Oldham
In 2010 we expanded on our Volunteer Programme by actively recruiting Advocacy Volunteers in addition to our Technical Volunteers who continue to work in the Lab doing the core ‘anchor’ work of text conversion for the visually impaired students. From this larger pool of talented and enthusiastic volunteers we were able to select students to be Notetakers for hearing impaired students. Not only did this pilot scheme assist the disabled students academically, but there were social benefit spin-offs, with real friendships being forged between students.
Photos: Nafisa Mayat (Disability Service) with some of the Advocacy Volunteer team at the Disability Service stand at Orientation Week
Armand Bam from Lofob with UCT Radio DJs and Advocacy volunteers at ‘O’ week demonstrating Blind Soccer for the upcoming event
We have paid tribute to our volunteers before - it is something that deserves to be done year after year. At an informal function on Wednesday 5 May we honoured them for their loyal service. This year we have introduced a long service award, the first of which went to Gugulethu Hlekwayo who has been a faithful volunteer since 2005
Photos: Students and volunteers celebrate
Gugulethu Hlekwayo receives his long service award from Reinette Popplestone.
In addition to being a home from home for visually impaired students using Jaws and Zoomtext software, the Computer Lab continues to be a busy venue for test and exam writing by students with a variety of disabilities.
The following figures will show how numbers have almost tripled in the past two years
November 2008: 28 students wrote 95 exams.
November 2010: 68 students wrote 200 exams
Creative solutions will need to be found as we seek to expand our services to more and more students, whilst working within the same venue with its space constraints. We are doing crucial work here. By providing disabled students with a suitable, more comfortable exam writing venue with appropriate accommodations, we are working towards removing barriers and giving the student a comfortable space within which to work towards success and graduation. Assistive support can be as simple as providing a student with a chronic back injury with a podium on which to write while standing up, providing a computer for a student with a handwriting disability, or as complex as providing scribing assistance or assistive software to a student with hand mobility difficulties or who is visually impaired. An example of a network of support having been created over the past two years to meet a growing need is in the area of working with students ‘at risk’. For example, we now give concentrated support for students with epilepsy writing tests and exams. A quiet space is provided with individual invigilation. We work closely with our Campus Protection colleagues/paramedics who assist us in the event of a student having a seizure. At the end of 2009 we invited Epilepsy SA to present a workshop to Disability Service staff and CPS colleagues on the dos and don’ts of Epilepsy support. It also provided us with an opportunity to thank CPS for their support and collaboration. We look forward to celebrating the graduation of many of our 2010 senior students.
2010 Advocacy and Outreach Initiatives
In 2010 we really out-advocacied ourselves. In May we hosted three advocacy events and in the second half of the year we hosted three more very successful advocacy and outreach initiatives. Four of these involved stakeholders outside the immediate University community, of which the first we report on is a good example.
Blind Soccer (also called footsal)
Not wanting to be left out in the cold (or is it the dark?!) and in keeping with the upcoming event of events, the Disability Service, UCT Sport, the SRC and the League of Friends of the Blind (LOFOB) presented a blind soccer tournament on Saturday May 1st. Spectators were able to watch UCT students - who received some training before the event - playing each other (under blindfold) and against some actual blind people. In the end we had four teams slogging it out for the trophy, which was won by the Hurtlockers, closely followed by Brazil. And as in all really good team sports the players did not leave the field unscathed. There was a bloody nose and some tears – yes, there were girls playing too! In fact, Player of the Match went to Lisa Wallace. The VC, whom we were very pleased to welcome in the spectators’ pavilion, did wonder aloud (and only half in jest) whether UCT insurance would cover this particular extreme sport! My beloved 7-year old foster child Rowan this year edged out Jodi Bell who until then had been our youngest disability advocate! It was wonderful to experience how students and colleagues alike responded with warmth and affection to Rowan, who is severely intellectually disabled after contracting TB Meningitis at the age of 7 months!
Photos: Maximilian Huber of the SHAWCO team tries to stop Jongikhaya Guzana of the LoFoB team, while blindfolded Lisa Wallace (SHAWCO) and Stanley Rhodes (at back) try to keep track of the game.
Rowan (Reinette’s foster child) and Qhawe (Sibu’s son) in discussion after the match
A House Warming
The month of May was indeed a busy one. On Thursday 14 May we had a house warming party. Some background may be in order. A few years ago UCT ran a transformation campaign called Gateways and Barriers. When the Disability Service was asked to contribute some material for this exhibition someone hit on the idea to block out all the buildings in which there were not accessible toilet facilities on a photographic map of Upper Campus. Our map made a powerful statement. In 2008, shortly after Edwina Konghot was appointed as our Barrier Free Access Co-ordinator, we set about installing accessible toilets in as many buildings as possible – always driven by strategic demand. We must have installed at least twelve! But the thing about Accessible Ablutions is that you can’t really turn them into a big publicity campaign. You can’t for instance arrange a ribbon cutting ceremony – too few people would fit in for the cocktails! But towards the end of last year we recognized the need for accessible housing for staff, and set about revamping one of the flats in the A block of Forest Hill – a block reserved for new and junior staff until they can find their feet in the commercial housing market , and for visiting academics on short term contracts. We were really determined that this would be an access showpiece – we put in new windows because the handles could not be lowered on the existing spongy wooden frames. We had all the floors resanded and polished, we put in accessible wardrobes, we lowered and raised everything that needed to be lowered and raised – light switches, door handles, wall plugs, entry phone and much more.
Photos: Before: Construction work and inaccessible shower
After: Fully accessible bathroom facilities
We realized that this was something we could “launch” – provide an opportunity to draw the University community’s attention to many of our less obvious success stories. So in a sense the accessible bathroom in the flat stood in for all the toilets we had made accessible on campuses. As usual we had a merry old time. We showed some before and after photos, had lots to eat, and the newest addition to the DS team – Rosemary Exner - emptied her house of antique rugs, fine china and linen, candles, to show our work to its best advantage. This may prove to have been an error of judgment on our part, because the Staff Housing Office may find themselves inundated with enquiries about when they could pick up their antique rugs, crystal wine glasses and silver tablewear. Ah, well, I’m sure they’ll cope. We ran a little impromptu competition, handing out cards and pencils for people to note down features in the flat that rendered it accessible. Glenn von Zeil, Manager of Student Housing, won the prize hands down. We realized too late that we hadn’t thought of prizes for the winners, so Glenn had to content himself with a hug and a kiss from me.
Braille Workshop
On the 6th October we held a workshop in collaboration with the Pan South African Language Board to promote the importance of braille – its role in empowering blind people. Earlier in the year I had been invited by the Director of the Centre for the Book in Cape Town to speak at a writer’s symposium. A few months after the symposium I was contacted by Dr Nomfundo Mali, the regional Manager of PanSALB, who indicated that following my presentation at the Writer’s Symposium they had decided that they would like to become involved in a joint initiative with UCT to promote braille. I did point out that braille was not primarily a language but a medium of reading and writing, but she remained adamant and I have to say she very soon persuaded me of the legitimacy and value of their involvement.
Photos:
Reinette Popplestone (seated) with (from left) Andre van Deventer, DVC Prof Crain Soudien, Justice Zak Yacoob, and Dr Nomfundo Mali at the Braille Awareness Workshop.
I coined a slogan which accompanied our invitational, promotional and other material to do with this workshop.
“Braille is not a language, but the gateway to all languages and Knowledge for blind people”
Many workshops around braille in the last decade had focussed on the fact that blind learners did not receive text books, the shortage of qualified and dedicated teachers, with the braille producers restating time and again what they could and couldn’t do, what challenges they faced.