At the end of the village of La Pedrera, which belongs to the municipality of Cruces, two visually impaired adults are on their way to move to the provincial capital. Next to them are three people who accompany them and one tells them that a Diana brand bus is approaching. Luckily the bus stops when it passes. “That’s 40 pesos to Cienfuegos,” says the driver. “It’s a rental car.” And so the two came together: with their sad faces, in between pushing and shoving, without a trace of sensitivity on the part of the sitters or the driver, who charged them both the full amount mentioned.
This is how people with disabilities can be abused in Cienfuegos today, and this is just an isolated case. The Provincial Directorate of Traffic has many accounts to those who are members or not members of Aclifim (Cuban Association of Physical Motor Ltd.) about the new modality – spreading like a virus – of cars leased to individuals who If you don’t comply with legal regulations, you can get a 50 percent discount on city and intercity transport, be it by bus or train, to one of the members of this or another association.
What is surprising is that this type of transport is considered necessary – in times of the fuel crisis no doubt – but at the same time the abuse and speculation by state and private drivers, including people with disabilities, persists.
For example, a citizen who is blind or has physical motor problems should never pay 60-70 pesos in a rented bus from the city of Cartagenas to the city, or even more from Aguada de Pasajeros.
It is a sensitive issue and it must be brought up for debate in all current spaces. Now even more so with the creation of the National Commission to follow up and monitor the application and provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In this sense, Aclifim in Cienfuegos has more than 3,700 members, many of whom have suffered not only from the vicissitudes of transport, but also in the areas of accessibility and inclusion.
Isbel Trujillo Yero, President of Aclifim, said here in a recent gathering that accessibility needs to be analyzed with a different look and stop associating it only with architectural barriers. “In the crisis, the question of access to technology and to different places (…) Why are there no cafeterias or restaurants here today, for example, which MINSAP itself has licensed, without a menu written in Braille,” claimed.
For years, Cienfuegos has accumulated an endless list of barriers and a very small percentage of elimination. The work of the Inotu (National Institute of Territorial Planning and Urban Planning) bears a great deal of responsibility. It should be noted that in the last period, out of a plan of 19 architectural obstacles to be removed in this province, only 5 of them have been solved and 14 are still pending, which is a very negative indicator.
But there is much more to it than that, said control or inspection groups of the barriers, it is also the responsibility of the central state administrative organs, say party, government, ministry of construction, etc., to end the search for that much-desired balance issue of accessibility — as has been shown has – not only for means of transport and other public spaces, but also for technologies, for more general information.
Communication and constructive criticism of the authorities must prevail at all times. We need to banish the notion that the members of Aclifim as well as the National Association of the Deaf or the National Association of the Blind and Visually Deef are the ones who are just “asking” things. No, they are only demanding their rights, which is very plausible, by the way, since they contribute to inclusion within society with a different nuance.
When a ramp or sidewalk needs repairing, it is not just for the benefit of a person with a disability or with a disability card, but for the benefit of the entire community of which they are a part. We must learn to look at the issue in question in terms of civil rights and not, as is usually the case, in terms of aid delivery.