My vision of disability

There have been many obstacles that I have had to deal with since I am a person with disabilities; there are many places in the city that I simply cannot access by using a wheelchair.

But I do not think that this is due to a lack of will in the people nor to a lack of affection for others.

According to me it is mostly entirely due to a widespread ignorance. People need to know we exist: We are people that cannot walk, or have any other kind of disability.

Only when a person 'knows' that someone may be living in a reality in which he/she has completely different needs, he/she will be able to demonstrate some degree of interest.

I use an anecdote that serves very well to illustrate my way of thinking. My mother’s grandmother suffered an accident in her hip and she was confined to a bed. One year, for Christmas, my grandfather gave her a wheel chair, which in those days was extremely difficult to achieve. Using a wheelchair without a doubt was going to significantly increase their quality of life, for example, it would allow her to leave the house to receive a little bit of sunshine. Her response to my grandfather’s gift was 'Do you really think I'm going to use that?' and she preferred to be her last 8 years confined to her bed.

Although that was a special case, it reflects very well the feeling that society has had towards disability. Disability was seen as a bad thing; a person with disabilities should shut himself up in his home and never go out. It was seen as a kind of punishment.

Then, why would the people that were responsible of designing the architectural works in the past need to worry about a special access for handicapped if they were never going to deal with?

At that time it was unthinkable that a person with disabilities came out to walk downtown, worse still, if someone like me would like to go to the University.
What I said before, led our city be built outside, without thinking of our special needs, what until now produces that the access to many of its places be impossible.

I'm going to list some of the obstacles that I have found in my wheelchair:


To begin with, the street where my house is located has a very big slope, so you must have great force to raise it in a wheelchair. I know a person who is able to do it, I cannot.




Many of the cross walks between the street and the sidewalk have a ramp, but this ramp is only to comply with the law, that is to say 'my work complies with the law because it has ramps', but they are completely dysfunctional, they do not meet their objective, which to my taste should be 'allow that a person with special needs can move forward'.

Some streets have a very big slope, so it is almost impossible for a person who uses a wheelchair move using them autonomously, it is even very difficult for a person who can walk well if she/he is using a chair.



Others, have a rise of 90° and then a slope, then it is impossible that a device like a wheel chair can reach the slope.




Some streets have a ramp on one side and they do not have it on the other side. Therefore, a person with disabilities gets stuck if he/she tries to go through them.




Others, simply do not have any ramps at all.


Many businesses buildings have a step at their entrance and this makes impossible, for people in my condition, to be able to access them.




Many food stores have their restrooms on the second floor following stairs, what makes me or anyone like me avoid going to eat to those places.


A few months ago, I went to a mall in Santiago and found myself with the situation of the photo:



Luckily, I was with my father and my cousin, then they lifted the wheelchair and I could move from the sidewalk into the street, but what does a person who goes alone on his/her wheelchair do? Perhaps that person is prohibited from entering the mall.



According to what I think this is not due to a lack of people’s criteria, or at least I do not want to think that the society, of which I am part, turned into an individualistic machine that is not capable of overlooking and realizing that we, people who cannot access those places as they are designed, exist. I want to believe that this is almost entirely due to the lack of knowledge about the world of the disabled and the solution to this is information, to tell stories involving people with disabilities, but not to make the rest feel pity for what the handicapped have to live but for the rest to recognize a pair in the person who is facing those problems.


People with disabilities are a reality and we can be a contribution to society if we are allowed to do so, for example if you make a person who does not have his /her legs to climb a ladder and replace products, it is very likely that that person will not be able to do the job, but if it is instructed to do something that is within his/her capacities , he/she will at least be able to do it well.

For example if I asked a fish to fly, I can assure you it will not do it, but we are not going to categorize it as a bad fish for not flying.


I do not want my productivity lower only by not being able to walk.


It seems a very simple challenge, but in practice it is very complex. Not only it requires the effort of a person, it requires a joint effort that is taken by each of the members that make up society. As I mentioned there are many places in my city that I cannot access by using a wheelchair, what removed my basic rights, e.g. for recreation, but even though I use a wheelchair I'm still a human being, I still have the same needs and the same feelings that everyone has.


It is time for us to walk in somebody else’s shoes and do things thinking about everybody.

David Flores

www.davidflores.cl

Photography: Constanza Asenjo and Miguel Flores.

Translation: Marcela Flores