If you live in Ghana or perhaps have taken a trip to Ghana before, I believe you have one way or the other come across many people living with disabilities who beg for alms along roadsides. Such ones do so with the aim of acquiring financial assistance from benevolent people who ply the road. At times, such ones risk their lives by getting into busy roads; all in the name of begging for money.

Because the blind amongst these individuals cannot join the street alone, they hire able people to lead them whilst they themselves do the persuasion. Majority, if not all of these disabled people, depend on the money they derive from this act for survival.

I have come across many people who utter words such as the following to disabled people when they ask for money from them. “Go and work. Begging won’t help you”, “Who told you a disabled person cannot work. Lazy people”, “A disabled person like yourself has manufactured a car in another country. You are here begging. Find something better to do with your life.” These are but few expressions that some angry Ghanaians throw to disabled people.

I have, in the past, had similar sentiments towards them. As time went by, I came to the realisation that these people are not to be blamed for choosing to beg from people instead of working. In as much as some might be lazy to work, I still don’t think such ones are challenged by the society to work. Few disabled people have been able to defy the odds.

I attribute it all to the system we have here in Ghana. The system isn’t challenging and favourable enough to disabled people. Able people are even finding it very difficult to differentiate their left from right, how much more the disabled? We live in a country where nothing favours disabled people.

We all find ourselves in a system where the fittest only survives. Governmental policies and projects do not take disabled people into account. If such is the case, how then do we expect these people to survive in this ‘hard’ economy?

How does it feel to leave in a society where you have to battle against prejudiced assumptions, harmful stereotypes, and unfounded fears? Such is the situation many disabled people find themselves in. Like any other oppressed minorities who do not have any substantial support from anyone, begging for financial aid is the only option left for them.

People with disabilities in Ghana are habitually considered unproductive and incompetent of contributing anything positive to the societies they find themselves in. They are rather seen as constituting an economic burden on their families and the society at large, which leaves them in a vicious cycle of poverty.

How many governmental and private institutions have you seen employ people living with disabilities? Only a few does. Some years back, a quota system was put in place so that employers with a certain number of employees employ a certain percentage of people living with disabilities. However, this system has been dropped, because it was poorly monitored.

When it comes to education, how many educational institutions in Ghana are disability-friendly? If the educational system does not favour disabled people, how then do we expect them to be educated or trained to depend on themselves for survival?

Much ought to be looked into situations like this. The system needs to be fixed properly by governmental officials, instead of squandering money without doing any meaningful work to help the country.

To you, do you think it’s the system or the disabled people who ought to be blamed?