Through eyes of mind and heart

Just under one in 20 of those registering for employment in September were classified as disabled, a total of 314 out of 7,382 then looking for a job. This factor has always troubled me. I feel it should not be beyond the national ability to find gainful occupation for a few hundred people.

There used to be a popular notion that many of those registering as disabled were malingerers, using an ache here and a pain there as an excuse to draw social benefits while working in the underground economy.

Through time, particularly in recent years, the authorities have taken tough action to weed out this element. The exercise cannot have been and will never be totally successful. Still, most of those 300+ registering as disabled are probably truly so, to one degree or another.

Being disabled does not equate to being unfit for or unwilling to work. My own perception is that those who are different because of some disability are more than willing, even anxious, to make their own way and earn their keep.

My view may be coloured to an extent by my personal attitude as a person born with what is termed as a disability though, thankfully, it disables me hardly at all. And by a burning urge to walk alone, though hopefully never totally apart, that shows no sign of weakening in my third age.

Yet it is shaped by much more than that. Particularly, by meeting with and relating to so many people along the various paths that I have travelled and still move along through life.

One's disability necessitates adaptation. Nature, in its mysterious way, promotes compensation as far as can be and sometimes, I know, over-compensation. It generates not self-pity, but determination. That does not make a disability any less of a reality. One to be recognised and dealt with in a befitting manner, as is required by all realities, applicable to whomever, and in whichever circumstances.

Society has not always been prompt or ready enough to recognise its own role, its responsibility to ensure all the colours of its rainbow are used to best effect so that the picture of life may be painted to its fullest potential. Society cannot be expected to contain as much love and caring for those with a difference as much as their own families do.

That is, of course, a sweeping statement. There are always exceptions. One can find uncaring parents, self-centred brothers and sisters, husbands and wives who do not quite remember their 'for-better, for-worse' promise when accident or ill-health strike. And there are individuals and organisations who give immeasurable love and caring, and also financial contributions, to others totally unrelated to them, towards whom they have no obligation - other than what should be within the core of solidarity towards each other that has to exist within us if we truly recognise ourselves as the species created in the image of God, who urges us to love others as we do ourselves.

Still, the family is the cornerstone of life and society. It succours those of its members who are different beyond the bounds of finite resources, at times even beyond the limitations of whatever seems possible. In time society learned that its role had to include more than charity. It had an obligation in terms of justice. And also that helping all its members to fulfil themselves to the fullest extent was in its own collective interest.

Enlightened social policy began to extend financial and other assistance to the disabled, and to their immediate families as well. Limited legislation was enacted to push employers to include a minimum of persons with a disability among their human resources. The requirement is not invariably met. Prejudice is a monster hard to slay.

Awareness also grew that access had to be made possible to those with a mobility challenge, and led to definite regulations - if not to enough effect as yet, at least with growing consequence. Education began to be opened up to be more inclusive. It would be a mistake, possibly creating more pain than reducing disadvantage, to think that all disabilities can be accommodated within mainstream education.

It would be a bigger mistake not to do all that is possible, to strive continuously to extend the boundary of what may be achieved. Inclusiveness is a concept whose deep meaning begins before and is wider than the education system. It starts with recognition that society includes all of us, the beautiful and the ugly, the proud and the meek, the gifted and the laggards.

Yet education is possibly its most important melting pot. Compulsory primary education for all, compulsory vocational or secondary education up to 16, as many as sensibly possible openings for those who want a post-secondary and tertiary education, is essential to the cultural formation of our society.

Also, to fashion a skilled human resource base without which our economy cannot compete and generate to distribute according to the norms of social justice.

The disabled cannot be left out of that pot. Those whose disablement requires balancing through special access and more focused teaching, perhaps also through adjustment to the teaching tools, would be unjustly punished by a society that denied them the opportunity to exploit and grow their innate abilities.

Others who, with the expensive but irreplaceable aid of facilitators, can move on to a level of knowledge and skills that may be limited to a given degree, would be a growing blot on society's conscience if they are left neglected.

Those whose disability may limit them severely from advancing at least to an average level of literacy and knowledge, but would still benefit from being cared for in an inclusive environment, also have a right to that environment.

Rights and available resources do not always fit as well or as much as those who need them, or want them for their offspring, would like. Which is why efficient utilisation of resources is always essential, without losing sight of the social necessity and justification to weight allocation reasonably in favour of those with the greatest needs.

In this regard some measures announced by the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in the Budget Speech for 2005 should not go unnoticed. One can never give enough in a Budget, particularly when the thrust dictated by circumstance is to save and take. To try to cut expenditure and raise revenue. But the Budget did contain useful gestures.

Reacting to a request by the National Commission Persons with a Disability, the PM said the government intends to raise the tax exemption threshold by Lm4,000, subject to certain conditions being met, for parents who send children with special needs to a private school and use the services of a facilitator.

To benefit from this measure parents have to have an annual income higher than Lm4,300, or Lm6,000 if both work. Those below that will not benefit. It is nevertheless a fact that there are parents who take on more than one job and work all sorts of unconscionable hours to meet the cost of a facilitator.

A broader measure announced is that to refund VAT on products purchased for the exclusive use of persons with a disability. It may not be easy to prove exclusive use, and to benefit one will have to be registered as disabled. But it is better to anticipate abuse in the name of but not really the benefit for the disabled.

A third measure will have a restricted impact, which will still be very significant to those who benefit from it. If two persons, each of them receiving a disability pension, marry, one of them will no longer lose the right to the disability pension.

Much more remains to be done, and the World Disabled Week we are going through (December 3-10) should raise awareness of that. In Malta too, disabled people who rely on state benefits, or work for the national minimum wage, have weekly incomes that fall below the amount they need for an acceptable quality of life, as found in a very recent study for the UK John Rowntree Foundation - cleverly entitled "Disabled people's cost of living" - more than you would think.

With examples of 'budget standards', the study calculates the costs of essential items, including personal assistance, which people with different levels of disability would need to lead their lives on level terms with non-disabled people. The research found that disabled people experienced extra costs in most areas of everyday life.

These, says a report on the study, range from major expenditure on essential equipment, to routine additional bills for food, clothing, fuel, transport and leisure activities. The budget standards worked out by the researchers set how much a disabled person with high to medium mobility and personal support needs would need to achieve an acceptable quality of life. It worked out at above the average wage.

The equivalent figures for deaf people, those who are visually impaired and disabled people with fluctuating or low to medium needs were quite below that standard. Generally speaking, says the report, people with the greatest needs had the highest costs. However, transport costs were greatest for those with fluctuating needs, and communication and leisure costs were highest among deaf people.

Costs for personal assistance were found to be very high. These include the cost of interpreters for deaf people and trainers for visually impaired people, as well as personal and home care services. A comparison between budget standards and the wages of a disabled person working 20 hours a week on the minimum wage (while claiming in-work benefits) revealed a considerable gap in unmet costs.

A co-author of the study, Noel Smith, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, said: "Official statistics show that 30 per cent of disabled people are in poverty, but these figures are based on income and don't take into account the additional costs of disability.

"Our research highlights just how substantial these additional costs are and so it clearly shows that the extent of poverty among disabled people is seriously underestimated. Even maximum benefit levels fall well short of meeting the true costs of disability; and it is equally clear that many disabled people in paid work cannot achieve the income required to meet their needs either.

"Much could be achieved," Mr Smith went on, "if society was prepared to fund the sort of improved support services that would reduce costs that currently fall on individuals. But disabled people also need more income so they can achieve an acceptable quality of life and come closer to achieving a 'level playing field' with non-disabled people."

The study did not cover education. It is very telling, nevertheless. Its framework could be adapted to similar research in Malta.

It does not take much research to determine that persons with a disability and parents of children with special needs continue to carry burdens heavier than the average. The great thing is that the burdens are never seen as the disabled themselves. Much remains to be done, and however much is done, it can never be enough.

But our society is blessed that, riven as it is with often unnecessary differences, it now looks at those with a physical, sensorial or mental difficulties with the eyes of the thinking mind.

And the feeling heart, and not with those of uncaring egoism.