After my last blog-post about the ‘Perceiving freedom’ sunglasses sculpture at Sea Point I have been scratching my head furiously about what to write about next. I have so many ideas and recent experiences of interesting installations and events that I am spoiled for choice. But, as so often happens, inspiration came to me quite by accident and once again involved “the things we miss. Friday, 21 March, was Human Rights day in South Africa, READ MORE
Category: Disability
Lest We Forget
October is not just Mental Health Month. October is also Life Esidimeni Month. Let us hope it is Accountability Month, as well. It is now three months since Judge Teffo’s ruling that criminal charges be brought against, among others, Qedani Mahlangu, the former Gauteng Health MEC, and Dr Makgabo Manamela. The Timeline In October 2015 the former Gauteng MEC Qedani Mahlangu announced the termination of its contract with Life Esidimeni, a private healthcare provider caring READ MORE
Understanding the Trajectory of Visual Impairment in the Workplace
In this webinar, Jeremy dialogues with long-time friend and colleague, Dr Michelle Botha, about the complexities of incremental vision loss while being employed. Since both Jeremy and Michelle have significant visual-impairment, they dialogue in an entertaining and anecdotal style, providing insight into challenges and opportunities for both the employee and the employer, and highlight many hidden aspects of this mostly overlooked area of Disability management.
The Travel-Chain for Visually Impaired Persons
In this webinar, Jeremy discusses an example of the travel chain for a person with a visual impairment. Using his guide dog, and following the route from his home to the local railway station, Jeremy covers in detail the various obstacles and good access features of the journey. Using his considerable technical knowledge of access issues and blind mobility, Jeremy succeeds in highlighting the importance of recognising the significance of NMT (non-motorised transport).
Perspectives on Employing Persons with Disabilities (4/4)
In this fourth and final episode, Jeremy speaks about how employers need to be more strategic about employing people with disabilities if they wish to succeed. In the previous three episodes Jeremy outlined the importance of seeing disability inclusion in perspective, taking into account three views; the legislative view, the human rights view and the business case view. In this episode, Jeremy discusses what he calls his ‘holistic disability equity approach’. He states that typically, READ MORE
Perspectives on employing Persons with Disabilities (3/4)
The business case view Jeremy continues on his theme that if employers wish to take disability employment seriously then a perspective view is necessary. In this third of four podcasts produced by Lois Strachan, Jeremy Opperman explores the business case for disability inclusion as the third part of his trinocular view model. Moving away from the other two views or lenses , the legislative compliance view and the human rights view, Jeremy states that the READ MORE
Perspectives on employing Persons with Disabilities (2/4)
The Human Rights view In this podcast, produced by Lois Strachan and the second of four episodes, Jeremy Opperman continues on his trinocular theme of needing to look at the employment of persons with disabilities with perspective. Taking into account not just the legislative requirement to employ people with disability but for employers to look through two other lenses as well – the human rights lens and the business case lens – if they wish READ MORE
Perspectives on employing Persons with Disabilities (1/4)
The Legislative View The importance of perspective in understanding the employment of persons with disabilities. In this podcast, the first in a series of four episodes, produced by Lois Strachan, Jeremy Opperman discusses the complexity of employing people with disabilities in the South African context. With his characteristic frankness and drawing on his 24 years of disability inclusion experience, he unpacks the fundamental pro’s and con’s and challenges of fixating on legislative compliance rather than READ MORE
Is there Room in the Diversity Narrative for Disability?
At lunch recently with a bunch of people I didn’t know, I was reminded again how separated we, as People with Disabilities are. I was once again fascinated by the level of basic ignorance, displayed by normal average folks, about the basic capabilities of blind people, and the various bits of kit available to them, talking watches, Voice-over on the iPhone, (and you should have seen their faces when I told them that the phone READ MORE
There is No Such Thing as an Accessible Train…(on its own)
Reading a helpful tweet from Metrorail about how they can be of service and, bearing in mind that it is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, made me think of the recent rail excursion involving the Western Cape Disability Network, which included this writer. At the time, several people with visual and physical disabilities, caught the new “People’s Train” or “Blue Train”, which had long been vaunted by Metrorail as being accessible. The point of the exercise was READ MORE