True Story: From the Incredible to the Ridiculous

By Martha Twibanire
vice-chairperson of Action des femmes handicapées de Montréal

Speech given at a sensitization workshop by the Table des groupes de femmes de Montréal on December, 3rd 2002 on the International Day of Disabled People.

Greetings to all,
I wanted to share with you, in a brief speech, my experiences both as a disabled woman and as a single mother of three children. Certain things are common to most of us. But I think that when you live alone and care for young children, things are a little different and somewhat more complicated.

For example :

Accessibility

I'll begin with public places: private clinics, banking institutions and learning establishments:

Private clinics:

Even before I make an appointment with the clinic, I first have to make sure that the place is accessible. Imagine if there's an
emergency...

Banking institutions:

I had to switch banks because the automatic teller in my area was not accessible; I did not want to pay the extra fee for using another bank machine. So I changed from the Royal Bank to Canada Trust.

But that's not all. One day, I spotted a Canada Trust bank across the street on the corner of St. Catherine and Guy. I wanted to cash a check so I headed towards it. When I got there, however, there were ten steps to climb. Unbelievable...!

I had to ask a passer-by to go in to ask if a bank employee would come outside and meet with me. When he came out, we had no other choice but to do my banking transactions outside on the sidewalk. Totally ridiculous.......

Learning establishments:

Ever since we've immigrated to Canada, I've only been able to meet with my children's teachers during the Christmas holidays. And this was only possible because the teachers themselves took the initiative of coming to my home to meet with me. However, you can understand how I would have liked to attend parent-teacher meetings and other activities as well.

On October 19th, 2002, I had to go with my son to St. Louis College for his registration. The college was not accessible so I had to stay at the bottom of the stairs for at least an hour....in the rain.

Luckily, someone drove by, helped me into the car and took me all the way home. I then called the college administration to make them aware of how inaccessible their building was to people with disabilities.

By then, my son had finished his exam and was looking for me everywhere. Thankfully though, he had the presence of mind to call home. I had a taxi pick him up at the college.
Employment

I'm taking courses right now and within a month, I'll be actively looking for a job. With three children to support, I can't afford to waste any time.

Here again, I will have to deal with the problem of inaccessibility. Last year, I remember losing two job opportunities because of this. It seems like the only recourse we have is to work for low-budget, non-profit community organizations.

In short, I feel that accessibility is the key to the overall integration and participation of people with disabilities. Gaining access to employment, to medical care, to information, to different activities and to different lifestyles like everyone else, is what will transform people's attitude towards people with disabilities.

This is what, in a nutshell, I wanted to share with you today. I encourage all of you to continue your struggle towards accessibility. This is a barrier we must all deal with together. Together, we will overcome it. Long live women!

Translated by Marie Soudre

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Access Concordia | CLSC, DPJ, the Police and Psychiatry