ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSIVITY

A visually impaired man listening to his screen reader. Photo by Agrobacter

I was working at a legal firm around Nairobi. I vividly recall the ever so present feeling of “what?”. Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for this lovely opportunity, to get a feel into what I would be doing for the rest of my life. The only downside to it was  the lack of effort to champion inclusivity and accessibility,which came to me rather unexpectedly.

I have been a heavy user of assistive technology such as  Screenreader. I am  proud and glad to say that it has made my life smooth and my day to day errands efficient. During that time in my career, I realized that there's more that needs to be done, especially in my field of work. It reminded me to be grateful for the efforts already put in place to push for inclusivity, and also join in the cause. The legal sphere is not digitized. Over the years, most of what went into court was filed manually. We were now faced with this new life, inside our living rooms with nothing but four walls to call 'friend' and 'colleague'. Everything went digital, and the legal field had no choice but to get in on the trend. This is where things went sideways for me.

The judiciary adopted the digital framework of filing case filings in the form of scanned  documents. This was a huge challenge to me because features that would make this accessible to me had not been put in place. Most of the time it was impossible to know what exactly I'm filing unless there is third party help. All I had was my screen reader  which read these documents as images, so you can imagine the confusion in the moment as I try to understand what is going on.

Years have gone by, and improvements are being made gradually with many inclusive features being introduced and adopted by the Judicial system.It however still is a call to embrace digitization more through adopting assistive technology and assistive devices. The lack of it, is what renders persons with disabilities vulnerable to ill-treatment. One thing I will forever stand for is a level playing field that doesn't call for pity, prejudice or favoritism. Over the course of my career and life at large, I have learnt that there's a lot that needs to be done with regards to breaking barriers between persons with disabilities and persons without, as well as portraying persons with disabilities as people who are as normal as anybody else. I believe this is a bridge that will need to be crossed fully for the necessity of assistive technology and devices to be understood.I will continue to champion for more awareness and education towards disability while believing in a better tomorrow for all persons with disabilities.

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A customized assistive vehicle for persons in wheelchairs. Photo by 24K-Production

Julius Mbura