Enabling the disabled through equal opportunities

The Constitutional right to equality as contained in the Bill of Rights is one of the key pillars of democractic South Africa. According to the White Paper on an Integrated National Disability "we must stop seeing people with disablities as objects of pity but as capable individuals who are contributing immensely to the development of society." The social model of disability wants to enforce the notion that the discimination and circumstances that people with disabilities face are 'socially created phenomena' and have little to do with the impairments of people with disabilities. the social model articulates that it is the barriers in buildings and services that limits the abiloity of people with disabilities to perform optimally and not their disability that is hampering them. The right for equality, fairness and inherent dignity, is a right and not a privilege.