1. CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY AND RATIONALE
3.2 Research design
4.2.2 Thandeka’s Life History
Figure 3: Thandeka's life map
The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) training association brought in disabled individuals to study at the college to enhance their employment possibilities.
Thandeka is a 29 year old albino with visual impairments. During the interview, she spoke with confidence and also used body language to stress some points. She was among the students who were brought to the college by COGTA. She was born in Nkandla and lived with her grandmother and twin brother who is also an albino. Her mother was deceased. Her father did not want anything to do with them.
After she had been turned down by many local schools in Nkandla, a social worker took her to Ethembeni Special School for her primary education. She matriculated at Arthur Blaxall School for the Blind. She lacked confidence in attending a mainstream college as she had attended special schools all her life. As an albino with visual impairments, she has always suffered from low self-esteem.
Her grandmother was overprotective and never thought that she would be able to go to higher education. She sometimes isolated herself because of fear of being sexually abused. In her community, there was a belief that having sex with a woman with albinism would cure HIV and AIDS. This restricted her freedom and had a negative impact on her achievement at school. She experienced rejection and exclusion due to myths and ignorance about albinism leading to bullying and other problems of social integration.
29 years old Born in Nkandla
Raised by grandmother
Born with Albinism and
is partially sighted
Attended Ethembeni Special School
in Cato Ridge (Primary Education)
Matriculated at Arthur BlaxallSchool for the Blind
Student at TVET College
(Public Management)
Doing internship at
COGTA Southern life
in Municipal Finance
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At the college she encountered a lot of challenges due to her impairments. She had poor vision and difficulty in mobility. She also had problems of seeing what was written on, and being able to read, the chalk board. Her impairments also limited her participation in outdoor sporting and leisure activities.
I am not able to perform according to my potential because of sight problems, especially in computer lessons. The computer screens and the white boards are too shiny for me.
It’s hard to see. The stairs are also a big problem, and I often miss a step and fall. Some students laugh at me.
Others, however, tried to be nice to her but the problem was that they overdid it.
Others pity me; they see albinism and visual impairments as an illness.
The interviewee complained that those who pitied her were always hovering around her like helicopters as if she needed help to perform tasks.
They think I need training in order to be like them, but sometimes they avoid me and only talk to me when necessary.
She managed to form friendships with her fellow students with disabilities at the college. Her relationship with her non-disabled fellows was bad at first, but improved with time when they got used to her.
I shake my head a lot as this is part of my impairment. It was bad that everyone would start shaking their heads in class as l came in, some students don’t like me. They call me ‘isishawa’ or ‘inkawu’ and l don’t like it at all, they often whisper behind my back about my head shaking.
When asked what motivated her to attend at the college despite all the challenges, she said:
I want to prove a point that l can do better than them. Being visually impaired does not mean that I have a mental problem. I perform tasks better than most of them.
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She described an incident in which she threw a tantrum in class because she could not read the computer screen. She complained to the social worker who referred her to the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) for help.
She finally received a special Braille computer from COGTA. The challenge was that the lecturers could not read Braille. No one could help her. Some lecturers told her that they had little time to devote to individual students, much less to make adjustments to their teaching styles. Also, lecturers had to deal with very large class sizes of about 40 students. As a mainstream college, they had no support staff to care for students with disabilities.
Some lecturers were really unhelpful, they also did not even notice bad comments directed at us by our peers who are able-bodied.
She defined success as being able to do things or perform tasks independently for herself.
I don’t want people to do things for me, I have my personal and academic goals that I wish to attain and achieving them would be success for me.
In dealing with the problems that she encountered at the college she said that she had to persevere and work hard. She did not want to give up. She ignored all the bad talk about her and focused on learning.
I accepted the fact that l must work harder than other students to get the same diploma, my impairments no longer bother me as l was born with them and will die like this.
On the steps needed to address barriers to learning that she encountered at the college, she said:
Braille should be provided for visually impaired students and lecturers should be trained on how to assist students with disabilities, government should also provide assistive devices such as magnifying equipment or tape recorders to assist in learning.
She also suggested the provision of note-takers or to be given additional time for note taking and to be given extra time during exams.
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