Apatia ou Empatia

Srijana Kattel vive no Nepal. Jornalista e escritora, é uma das principais vozes do movimento pela defesa dos Direitos das pessoas com deficiência naquele país. Com toda a coragem e bondade, acedeu ao meu pedido de escrever acerca da forma como as pessoas com deficiência no Nepal estão a lidar com a pandemia. Este é o seu testemunho.

"Apathy or empathy.

Srijana Kattel

Nepal

No other incident in the history of our lifetimes, than the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic has made the people of the world realize the existence of two separate realities in the same world; of the rich and the poor .however while trying to handle the pandemic right our leaders conveniently choose to forget about a section of the population, the people with disability. The fact stands true for most countries.

I am a citizen of Nepal, a country with a population of (2018)28.09 million of which about two percent are people that reported having “some kind of disability” according to Nepal census in 2011. Most of the people with disabilities have led a life of isolation before the pandemic struck and if no big change comes about, they will continue to live a life of quarantine where isolation never ends the one and only reason is the lack of proper infrastructure and money. The isolation has led to joblessness which was forced on by the lack in being able to see the work potential of the “disabled population” by employers and also the lack of saleable skills of the people with disabilities. For the sole reason, they have disabilities they live in isolation they have not been able to learn and grow those skills. A cycle that leads to only one answer, “…because you are disabled”.

If you have no job you have no money, no money but expenses are not cancelled, one still has to eat, wear clothes, and have a roof over your head, and an essential but added expense of buying medicine and doctor visits. COVID 19 has classified the disabled as a vulnerable population, as in any crisis. Vulnerable because of the many barriers they face attitudinal, physical, financial, and educational.

Consequently, in such unprecedented times they have to depend on the basic necessities of life on the relief and goodness of the heart of the Good Samaritan, which should not be the case ever. Myself being a part of this very vulnerable population I have a family that takes care I don’t need to worry about roof, food, or medicine for which I am ever thankful. Nevertheless, I do worry; I worry for those that struggle day to day, for those that have nothing to prepare for this crisis. Those that are cheated again and again by fate then are screwed over by the government. About two days ago I saw newspaper reports of the minimum monetary relief to blue disability identity cardholders was decided to be scrapped. There are four types of identity cards red, blue, yellow, and white depending on the severity of the disability, only red card and blue card get monetary relief. Now one may be inclined to think maybe it was an unfairly large amount so the government decided so, it is only Rs 1600 NPR (13.18USD) per month. How and why did the thought ever occur instead of increasing they were removing it, the sensibility of our leaders and officials are in question? In these times when additional relief needs to be provided, they thought of removing it.

I can only attempt to write and express thought of this wonderful community of people with disabilities because my disability is the biggest weapon I have. Overall, it can be optimistically said COVID19 quarantine hopefully is going to make everyone realize the importance of every human no matter their gender, race, job, or financial status and we all emerge out of these tiring times as compassionate, thoughtful, understanding empathetic and kinder human beings."

Imagem:©Anish Regmi (Março de 2019, Katmandu, grupo de manifestantes derruba infra-estrutura sem acessibilidade sem medo da polícia)