A guest post by former TADNSW physio Weh Yeoh
I have to say that when I left TADNSW to work with
Handicap International in China, it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Sure, we faced difficulties working in the disabilities sector back home all the time, but here I was going to a country that I had no experience working in, with language skills that I would rate as barely passable, and in a disabilities sector that I was very unfamiliar with.
Apart from studying a Masters in International Development, I worked for 3 years with TADNSW as a physiotherapist alongside the current physio,
Brendan Worne. Here in China, my role is similar, but instead of concentrating on the provision of assistive devices to people with disabilities, my input is more on the systems that Handicap International is helping the Chinese government to build and strengthen.
You might think that working in Sydney, Australia, and Guangxi, Southern China, are so far away from each other that it’s almost like being on a different planet. That is true in many (important!) respects. Good coffee in Guangxi is extraordinarily hard to find, and you don’t need to take out a small business loan every time you want to buy a bunch of bananas (they cost about Aussie 60c a kilo here).
But even though I am regularly stared at for my outlandish height (which, at 6 foot, is nothing to write home about by Australian standards), there are many similarities between the disability sectors here and back home. The same underlying problems that we face in Australia are here, often just amplified.
At the base of many of the issues that people with disabilities face in Australia is a lack of dignity. There is no dignity in living a life that doesn’t allow full participation in society, that involves sitting on the sideline and observing play as it carries on.
As many people at TADNSW would know, this can involve not having the correct pieces of equipment to enable the people with disabilities to participate. Often the gap between what is needed and what is available in the market place is huge, which is a good justification for TADNSW’s existence.
Assistive devices is a big buzz phrase here in Guangxi as well, although the rationale and logic is a little different. While we spent much time trying to keep the cost of equipment down in Australia, to make it affordable for everyone, equipment that is provided here is very much given value according to the price tag. In other words, low cost assistive devices are always going to run second rate to expensive, complex and often unsuitable devices. As such, the common practice is to ignore low cost assistive devices that would provide the children with much benefit, in favour of stuff that is factory made and expensive.
Financial support is another area that is highly topical in the disability world, with the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) hopefully being a step forward in the right direction. Just as you see very few rich families with children with disabilities in NSW, poverty only amplifies the problems associated with disability in China. In my first week here, a visiting professor from Beijing said something that really struck a chord with me. He worked in the agriculture sector and had visited Australia before. He said that in Australia, the cities are less developed than those in China, with less infrastructure. Those who regularly complain about Sydney’s public transport would be interested to know that using Beijing’s subway is a dream by comparison, and riding bicycles in most Chinese cities is almost always a safer, and more enjoyable experience. Yet, in the countryside, the gap between Australian and China is enormous. As tough as farmers are doing it in Australia, they face nowhere near the amount of poverty that rural China faces.
As a result, children with disabilities do not often have access to education in rural areas. The closest school that is able to take them may be too far away, and their parents do not have the ability, time or money to get the children out there. Compounding this is often a lack of funding for equipment and rehabilitation that will assist the child to maximise his or her potential, so that being able to get into the classroom and participate is just a distant dream.
Without access to education and participation, the cycle of poverty continues, with the barriers that exist to prevent children with disabilities getting involved only exacerbating it.
In Guangxi, China, Handicap International works at various levels to promote the independence and participation of children with disabilities. We work not only to support inclusive education, but to get back to what the true definition of disability is - the barriers that society builds. For example, are there physical barriers in the environment that need to be addressed? Are there attitudinal barriers amongst the child’s peers or teacher? Is the child able to receive rehabilitation to improve his or her abilities, and can assistive devices help to overcome any of these barriers?
At the very heart of all these problems is the level of poverty in rural parts of Southern China. Just as lack of financial support is a huge problem here, the very same problem amplifies disability in Australia. Which makes me often think that the two settings are not as far away as you initially perceive.
Weh Yeoh is a former employee of TADNSW who now works as a rehabilitation advisor with Handicap International, a Belgian based international NGO that focuses on supporting people with disabilities who are living in poverty. Having spent much of his life travelling and living in developing countries, he is passionate about the field of international development, and regularly writes for http://www.whydev.org.
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