Living With Disability

If you ever need a role model, then national wheelchair tennis player Abu Samah Borhan is your man. The 32-year-old is the epitome of determination and perseverance, having come to terms with a spinal injury that left him paralysed from the waist down 11 years ago.

THOSE who become disabled because of diseases can receive a disabled person’s (OKU) card if they get a doctor’s certificate confirming their condition, said state Social Welfare Department deputy director R. Chitarthany.

The certification will have to be done in a public or private hospital and not at a specialists’ centre or general practitioner’s clinic.

Checks with both the JKM and disabled advocate Peter Tan showed that JKM rules require a disabled person to be examined, with a letter from a government medical officer stating the nature of the disability – temporary or permanent – and type of disability.

Unicef launched a study on the perceptions and attitudes towards childhood disability among Malaysians, which reveals a strong discrimination against the disabled.

85 percent of disabled people aged 18-34 say they are lonely often or all the time, new research from disability organisation Scope has established. The study involved interviews with over 1,000 disabled people.

In some developed countries, people with intellectual disabilities, such as autism, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome are enrolled in supported employment programmes that offer them the opportunity to work. Now China is catching up.

A video of people venting their anger towards two Penang Island City Council (MBPP) officers went viral on social media today.

The five-minute, 12-second video showed a silver Toyota Vios with its front right wheel clamped. The car is believed to have been parked at a spot for the disabled at Jalan Macalister.

Nearly a decade ago I became a member of the disability community, a community that at the time I knew nothing about. I didn’t know the first thing about what living life with a spinal cord injury looked like, although sadly my initial assumption of what my future would look like, looked nothing like the life I have lived.