A R C H I V E S
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Disabled but still beautiful |
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| Halima |
| 12/08/03 at 02:05:06 |
| Sunday December 07, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE HOME -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disabled but still beautiful By OMWA OMBARA Rama Said proudly wears the Miss Disability 2003 diadem. Crowned by First Lady Lucy Kibaki, she exudes enthusiasm, charm and wits, humility and grace. She is friendly, open and laughs easily. Her crown opens for her the way to reach out to compassionate hearts around the world in a campaign to raise charity funds for the disabled. She will be traversing the country in a bid to raise money for a home for disabled orphans living with Aids and disabled persons infected and affected by the pandemic. Rama, 19, wins a year's scholarship from the Personal Care Institute to study cosmotology (beauty). First Lady Lucy Kibaki's presence at the pageant, held in Nairobi a couple of weeks ago, was significant. President Kibaki was in a wheelchair when he cast his vote last year and as Kenyans elected him. From a wheelchair he was sworn in, and the physically disabled persons were able to identify with him. First Lady confided in herThe First Lady confided in Rama her experiences living with a disabled husband during those few difficult months. "Since then, I have not taken any disabled person for granted," she told Rama at the Hilton Hotel where the pageant took place. President Kibaki had suffered debilitating injuries in a road accident during his election campaigns. Soft-spoken Rama recalls her brief moments with the First Lady: "What struck me most about her was her level of sincerity with regard to disabled persons. I could feel the warmth coming straight from her heart and not from her lips. She held me like her own daughter. I know she was not acting." For Rama to participate in the Miss Disability beauty pageant there were many cultural and religious hurdles to cross, and ghosts to be exorcised. It is not easy for a Muslim girl of 19 to drop her hijab and appear on the catwalk in a bikini. When Rama was approached by the United Disabled Associations of Kenya for an audition for the pageant, ripples of fear ran through her mind. She was excited but afraid. How would she approach her family and friends for approval? How could she do the catwalk with a limp? True to her fears, there were mixed reactions all round when she sought approval to take part in the pageant. Some family and friends dismissed the whole idea as a shameless ploy to ridicule both the disabled and the Muslim community. "Some of the people told me to my face that there was nothing beautiful about a disabled person and it's time I accepted my limitations and concentrated on my books. They told me to stop tempting God because He could even create for me another disability." At a certain point, Rama almost withdrew her plans on the pageant. However, her guardian and his wife, with whom she lives in Karen, endeavoured to dig up more information about the pageant. He made endless calls to the organisers for details, and it emerged that no one was going to wear a bikini and that decent dressing was the norm. There was no need to show the legs as this did not necessarily portray beauty, the organisers said. In fact, the only time she would be allowed to leave her hair uncovered was on stage. The organisers wanted contestants aged 18-27, good looking, visibly disabled, without children, intelligent, sensitive and bold enough to advocate the rights and needs of the disabled. With a sigh of relief, Rama started training for the catwalk and other tasks ahead. Coming out of a world of seclusion in which she had never met such a wide variety of disabled persons makes Rama feel this is a lot more than a beauty pageant. "I had never met a blind or deaf or dumb person or an albino before; it came as quite a shocker. It made me appreciate my own being and beauty and that of others more than ever. I learnt of their problems, their joys, their fears. We were able to laugh at ourselves without any hang-ups." Given an array of disabilities, what would Rama pick? She shakes her head and laughs sweetly. "No! No! No! I would prefer to remain the way I am. I believe God created me this way for a purpose, and thanks be to Allah for His grace and mercy," she says, lifting up her palms to the sky. And what made her think she was beautiful enough to enter the pageant? "I believe in myself. I knew I would be looking nice. For me it was an opportunity to encourage other disabled persons to come out of their shells and start living a full life. To affirm the belief that disability is not inability. That every person on earth has some inner beauty that could be useful to someone else." Rama was not born disabled. She was a normal child, attending Sowene Primary School in Voi, until the age of six when she went down with fever and her father took her to Voi District Hospital. "I got an injection and after a few hours half of my body was paralysed. My father did not want to sue the doctor for negligence despite pressure from friends and family. He said it was the hand of fate." Coping with her disability is no mean task. "I have often caught sight of children and adults imitating my limp and laughing behind my back. Others push me out of the way saying I should walk faster. But I don't mind. I only pray for them. I am happy with what God gave me." On her way home after classes - she attends Kenya Pride Computer College - matatus often ignore her and refuse to stop. Once in a while the tout will shout in her direction: "Usibebe huyo, atatuchelewesha." (Do not carry that one. She will waste our time). The only place Rama did not experience any form of discrimination or stigmatisation was at Njoro Girls' Secondary School, where she completed her school last year and passed with grade B-. "My fellow students were very friendly and supportive and the place felt more like a home than a boarding school". Like any other star, the pains of being a celebrity are already catching up with Rama. Suddenly she is getting lots of phone calls from friends and strangers asking her for money and all sorts of things. Some want a lift in her new Miss Disability car. Rama's long-term goal is to help establish a school of art and talent for disabled persons as most have little education. She wishes to construct a home for disabled persons afflicted by Aids and to have visiting sessions with mentally handicapped people in special schools. Rama is concerned that so far, no communication on Aids has been done in Braille in Kenya - thus excluding the blind, the deaf and dumb who cannot read. The beauty queen appeals to Members of Parliament to support the disability bill "so that people with disabilities can be recognised and protected from human rights abuse". Rama has no boyfriend. "Its too early to be involved in such a relationship," she says. She wants to finish school first. "I wish to study medicine at the university next year. I want to be the best doctor in the whole world, to save lives, to make people feel better." Rama's hobbies include reading novels and making friends. She is the sixth born among eight children - four boys and four girls. Her father is a businessman in Voi. Rama has special appreciation for those who organised the event, especially Wheel Power International executive director Churchill Omondi, Legal Advisor Griffins Okeyo and Miss Disability secretariat members Rachel Ramoss and Sylver Oloo, Miss Disability translator Lucy Atieno, the Association of the Physically Disabled, Kenya National Association for the Deaf, the United Disabled Persons, musician Mighty King Kong, and all the people who made the event successful. The event's organisers, Exact Models, banded together with Wheel Power International, an organisation that helps physically challenged people to acquire wheelchairs. Their spirited campaign attracted more than 40 girls who turned up for the auditions. Twenty girls were prejudged and further winnowed down to 10 participants who strutted their stuff at the Miss Disability final parade. All the 10 participants were dressed to the nines for the occasion. Oozing confidence, they took to the aisle and proved that disability is not inability. In the Question and Answer session, the girls fielded questions regarding the rights and plight of the disabled. "I think all efforts to help us should involve us because there can be nothing about us without involving us," said one of the contestants, to a round of applause from the audience. Musician Mighty King Kong sang his way to the hearts of those who graced the event by belting out popular tunes off his two albums, Ladies' Choice and Cinderella. Other artistes were Bakulutu, Zangalewa, XYZ and Kama Brian. In the end, Rama, Susan Mwikali and Hellen Awuor charmed the judges most. Rama is an information technology student at a Nairobi college, Susan works for a Voluntary Testing and Counselling Centre in Buru Buru while Hellen is a secretary at an IT firm. She sings on the side. Exact Models plans to identify and develop talents among disabled people, harness their capacities and improve their welfare. "There is a lot to be done to make disabled people fully accepted in our midst," says Cliff Mboya of Exact Models. His colleague Morgan Tanda adds: "It is the disabled women who bear the harshest brunt of discrimination and marginalisation in society. This pageant has served to show they can ably participate in beauty pageants and the things that able-bodied women do." |
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