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Women with disabilities urged to take up careers in media

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WOMEN with disabilities have been urged to take up careers in the media in order to improve coverage of issues affecting them.

WOMEN with disabilities have been urged to take up careers in the media in order to improve coverage of issues affecting them.

BY STEPHEN CHADENGA

Speaking at a Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ) consultative meeting held in Mkoba, Gweru, yesterday, Young Women Christian Association Midlands co-ordinator, Rachel Kufirwa, said women with disabilities should “seriously’’ consider taking up journalism careers to write their own stories.

“Women with disabilities should be in the media to articulate their issues well,” Kufirwa said.

“It is easy for people with disabilities to write their own stories rather than for those who are not (disabled) to try through their own lenses, to appreciate the challenges of people living with disabilities.”

Experts have argued that the media played an important role in portraying a positive image of people living with disabilities.

More than 1,6 people million in the country live with disabilities, and more than half of them are women.

An official in the Women Affairs ministry, Enestia Mudzingiri said there was need for a paradigm shift in the way employers viewed people with disabilities.

“People who employ are not looking at the skills that people living with disabilities and in women in particular have,” she said.

She also said there was need to urgently address the issue of user-friendly buildings to make them accessible to people with disabilities.

Gweru assistant district administrator, Tanyaradzwa Chimanyiwa said there was need to uplift women from the grassroots level, starting with the girl child.

She said women should create networks and be capacitated to assume top positions in government.

The meeting which drew women from around Midlands province was aimed at strengthening capacities for women in public administration and civil society organisations.