What's disability to me?

Moshi, Tanzania
Faustina Urassa, Programme Officer, KASI
I'm working with KASI, Kilimanjaro Association of Spinal Cord Injury.
My job is to train adult people with disability how to cope with life after spinal cord injury.
And one of the things I have been talking in depth about is wheelchair.
Because if you train somebody to be independent,
but you don't give him or her appropriate wheelchair, it's like you have done nothing.
It makes me sad when you go to train somebody or to visit them,
because we do also home visits and hospital visits,
if you find this person needs a wheelchair and he has no wheelchair at all.
That is when I feel sad and sometimes actually, I've cried.
But, when I train somebody
and it changes their lives,
I feel like I am flying,
It really, really makes me happy to see people changing.
They go back to school, they go back to work,
they take on their responsibilities as a father or as a mother.
That's when I feel proud.
If you don’t have an appropriate wheelchair
that is the time when you really feel that you are disabled.
But if you have an appropriate wheelchair
which meets your needs and suits you,
you can forget about your disability.
This is disability to me.
What's it to you?

With thanks to Faustina Urassa and the Kilimanjaro Association of the Spinally Injured (KASI)
Financial support for the development of this film was kindly provided by the governments of Australia and the USA; and by CBM.
DISABILITY. What's it to you?
World Report on Disability
Launch 9 June 2011
www.who.int/disabilities/world_report