This new column, as the name implies, will focus generally on disability, disabled people, their contribution to national development and their relationship with their able bodied counterparts.

The columnist, Yahya Muhammad Bah, is himself a disabled; but a disable with a difference. But Mr Bah is not taking the situation surrounding his achievement for granted, that is why he feels it prudent to share his experience with the rest of the public. In the next few weeks week be reading a serialized publication of his thesis as a students in Sweden. To sustain this column, your contributions as the audience will be quite crucial to that effect. You can reach the columnist either through telephone: 9907984 or e-mail: info@observer.gm.

Fundamental to any discussion of disability is the recognition that persons with disabilities are human being like any body, secondly they have disabilities that affect some but not necessarily all their abilities. Acknowledging the fact that words are powerful tools in communication, I have in this discussion decided to use a phrase like persons with disabilities instead of words such as cripples, deaf and dumb, as the latter confirm the common view that persons with disabilities are different from the rest and thus seem to lack dignity, rights and responsibilities.

People in different parts of the globe, attaches importance to different type of disabilities, simply because some are common in the area than the other, however, local beliefs also affect how people view different disabilities. In places where people beliefs that fits, for example are the work of devils, thus a child with fits may be feared, teased or kept hidden. But in areas where every body perceive fits just something that happens to certain people, a child with fits may sometimes participate fully in the daily activities of the family and society. Both of these children need help to live grow to be productive citizen. With later kind of attitude, the integration of persons with disabilities into the mainstream of the society will be easier.

Mainstreaming in this discussion refers to making persons with disabilities to feel and be part and parcel of the society, thus interacting with all other persons in all form of life activity, for example being brought up in the same family and society, getting educated in the same schools, colleges and universities as the rest, getting vocational training and employment within the same settings with the rest.

Also living in the same localities (villages, towns, cities, etc) with others, and equally enjoying the social facilities and services with the rest. In a nut shell, that is, to live together in the same communities and participate in all activities on equal basis from childhood to old age.

Disability
The term disability is viewed and defined in different number of ways, by scholars of different orientations. Because it is essential for anyone who works with or for the persons with disabilities to understand the history of disabilities, I would like to spend some time in this part of the discussion.

Ndaka M.A. (1991) defined persons with disabilities as those whose prospects for obtaining and developing in a meaningful employment greatly reduced due to physical and/or psychological impairment.

Weisman A. (1974) observed that the meaning of being disabled includes the recognition that organs and body parts are no longer conspicuous compliant instruments that carry out their owners intentions.

International Labor Organization (ILO) 1993, defined disability as loss of functions, because of a damaged to the body or mind through disease or injury.
During the early 1970s, there was a strong reaction amongst persons with disabilities, representatives of the organization for and/or of persons with disabilities, professionals in the field of disability against the definitions and terminologies of the time. That is the terms disability and handicap have been used in an unclear and confusing manners, which to some extent help the negative attitudes people hold towards disabilities and persons with disabilities, worst of all it gave poor guidance to policy makers, opinion leaders, politicians, etc.

The terminology reflected a medical and diagnostic approach, which ignored the imperfections and deficiency of the environment. Therefore, some professionals and advocates have expressed concerns that the classifications, in it definition of the term “handicap”, for example, can still be considered too medical and too centered on the individual, and does not adequately clarify the interaction between societal conditions or expectations and the ability of the individual.

In 1974, Handicapped Persons in the Community lobbied for a change in gear in the way persons with disabilities are viewed and defined. Firstly, there is anatomical, physiological or psychological abnormality or a loss. Therefore, we think of the person with disabilities as a persons first who has lost a limb or part to the various system through surgeon or in an accident, becoming, for example, visually impaired, hard of hearing or physically impaired in some aspects, usually in observable ways,     
Secondly, there are chronical clinical conditions altering or interrupting normal physiological, psychological processes such as bronchitis, arthritis, etc and manic depression. For any meaning of disability the clinical reference object is the normal human body, of like sex and age.

Thirdly meaning is functional limitations of ordinary activity, whether that activity is carried out on a lone or with others. The simplest example is incapacity for self care and management, in the sense of being unable to or finding it difficult to walk about, negotiate stairs, wash and dress.

Fourth meaning is a pattern of behavior with particular elements of a socially deviant kind. This pattern of behavior is in a part directly attributable to impairment or pathological conditions such as regular physical tremor or limps, or an irregular occurring fits.

Finally disability means a socially defined position or status. The actor doesn’t just act differently. He occupies a status which attracts a mixture of difference, condescension, consideration and indifference. Therefore, disability is an empty inferiority as well as different status.

Persons with disabilities share with non-disabled persons, fears, ideals and superstitions, thus, as a group they cannot be characterized low in intelligence, or less sensitive than the others. Therefore, there are more similarities than differences between persons with disabilities and the able bodied.

But factors that are related, and they provoke a reaction to a persons with disabilities, those factors include, his economic position, his social environment, nature of his disability, the point at which disability occurred in his life, the circumstance of its onset, the treatment procedures that are required, and course and the progress of the disabling process, and all those that have an effect on him.

In this discussion, I referred the World Health Organization’s 1980 international classification of impairments, disabilities and handicaps, in which impairment is abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function; disability the restricted ability to perform an activity, and handicapped restriction faced by a person with disability in fulfilling normal roles due to social barrier.