Overcoming disability

HUYE–OFTEN, people with disabilities are lulled into believing that disability is an unsolvable barrier to success- thus condemning them to a destitute and deprived life.Emma Benimana, 45, was one of them and fell into this trap and suffered a lot until she found a new life. At the end, she won and her life took another direction, according to her testimony.In fact, Benimana was born physically handicapped. The situation made her totally dependent on her relatives for survival.But, her situation got worse over a decade ago when her grandfather, who was taking care of her, passed away. “My relatives rejected me because they considered me a burden,” Benimana reminisces. “I faced real rejection. I was being discriminated due to my physical situation.”“No one really cared for me,” he says with a tinge of bitterness.And in such a situation, the woman made a choice which would further complicate her conditions. She took to the streets where she spent approximately seven years begging.“I had lost hope and I thought I could do nothing to change my situation,” she acknowledges.“I had swallowed the theories that with my physical unfitness, I was condemned to total inability.”But, evidently, the money she received by begging could not help her in any way to get out of her precarious living conditions.And as days went by, her situation kept deteriorating and she realised that she would end her days in the most deplorable conditions. So, she decided to look up for solutions elsewhere.Therefore, she resolved to quit the streets.“I approached local leaders and told them my situation. I asked for some help, which I received,” she recalls happily.At first, Benimana, a resident of Ngoma sector, Huye district received a bicycle which she gave to a young man in her area to operate for business purposes.The young man, who was supposed to pay a sum of money on a regular basis to his landlord, exploited her situation to literary misappropriate the funds.“He was taking the money and I was getting nothing from this business”, Benimana says. “So I decided to sell off the bicycle”. “It was not helping me,” she adds.After selling the bicycle, the woman returned to the street, but this time as a different individual: she started selling things like cigarettes, biscuits, orbits and other small items on the street, something she currently still does five years since she ventured into this business.Though small “business” as people call it, Benimana says she manages to meet her basic needs including food, rent or clothes. “Since I started this activity, my life has changed”, she reveals. “I have the capacity to meet my basic needs and to save a little money for the future”, she adds, disclosing that her bank accounts currently boosts of over Rwf 300 000 without counting the amount she lent out to her friends.She even employs a young man who helps her move from home to town and back every day.But, what is inspiring about the woman is not her “business” but the resolve she made to look for a solution to her problems rather than relying on well-wishers for survival.“Begging is not something you would be proud of”, she says. “It is shameful”. She says people look at you and laugh. They think you are cursed. “You cannot pretend that by relying on well-wishers among passers-by, your problems will get solved. Not! Only the situation continues to become worse”, she adds, calling for others to quit the streets and look for solutions elsewhere.As a disabled individual, Benimana says she is determined to improve her living conditions.“I believe I will continue to improve. I have discovered that the capacity lies first within me”, she says resolutely. “Of course, there are a lot of challenges. But that will not deter my determination because I know that even the wealthier in the society do face challenges”.