Call for disability inclusion beyond charity

Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities Mmapaseka Steve Letsike has called for a fundamental shift in how South Africa approaches disability inclusion.

Delivering her keynote address at the closing ceremony of the 2026 Special Olympics South Africa National Summer Games in Rustenburg, North West, on Saturday, Letsike said society must move beyond charity and accommodation towards ensuring equal opportunities, dignity and meaningful participation for persons with disabilities.

Letsike commended athletes for demonstrating the importance of opportunity, participation, and recognition.

She said the games provided more than a sporting spectacle, highlighting courage, discipline, friendship, determination and joy, while challenging assumptions about what persons with intellectual disabilities can achieve.

“Sport may be the arena in which we have gathered, but the real conversation is about dignity, belonging and equality,” Letsike said.

She said the lived experience of equality remained vastly different for many people, with persons with intellectual disabilities continuing to encounter barriers in education, healthcare, employment and their communities.

According to Letsike, exclusion is often embedded in systems that were not designed to accommodate people with disabilities, including schools unable to support learners appropriately, healthcare systems that fail to communicate effectively, workplaces that have already decided what persons with disabilities can contribute, or communities where disability is still approached through pity rather than rights and agency.

She said the lesson of the Special Olympics is not that persons with intellectual disabilities are extraordinary because they have somehow overcome their disabilities, but that society often underestimates what people are capable of when barriers are placed in their way.

“When those barriers are removed, when support is available and when people are afforded the dignity of opportunity, talent finds expression,” the Deputy Minister said.

Letsike said South Africa’s disability agenda must therefore increasingly focus on substantive inclusion and redesigning institutions so that accessibility and inclusion are incorporated from the outset.

She said inclusion should span the entire life journey of a person with an intellectual disability, from early childhood through education, healthcare, sport and skills development to employment, economic participation and independent living.

“It must also mean that persons with disabilities are represented where decisions are made about their lives. The principle of "nothing about us without us" cannot remain a slogan that we repeat at disability events; it must become a principle of governance.

“Government, civil society, sporting bodies, communities and the private sector all have a responsibility to ensure that persons with intellectual disabilities are not regarded as passive recipients of programmes but as citizens with voices, aspirations, talents and the right to shape the society to which they belong,” the Deputy Minister said.

Letsike also highlighted the intersection between disability, gender, age, geography, and economic circumstances.

She said a young woman with an intellectual disability living in a rural area, for example, may experience multiple layers of exclusion, particularly where families lacked the financial resources required to navigate systems that are often difficult even for those without disabilities.

“If our policies treat people as though these realities can be separated from one another, we will inevitably design responses that miss the complexity of their lives,” she said.

She welcomed the inclusion of Healthy Athletes screenings during the Games, saying this demonstrated that participation in sport is connected to a much broader question of wellbeing.

Letsike said accessible healthcare, early identification of health needs, prevention and sustained support must form part of the same conversation as sporting opportunity.

She also acknowledged the contribution of families, caregivers, coaches, officials and volunteers who support athletes, while stressing that families should not have to shoulder the burden of overcoming systemic barriers alone.

“Our long-term goal must also be to build a society in which families do not carry this responsibility alone.”

Letsike encouraged athletes selected to represent South Africa at the 2027 World Summer Games to carry the hopes of those who competed in Rustenburg, while reminding those who were not selected that their participation remained equally valuable. – SAnews.gov.za
 

Source: Original report at SAnews.gov.za.