Story

By Lindile Zanda Mpepanduku
Hollard
One of the most challenging yet rewarding sessions I have ever had the honour of training. I had a session in Lugelweni A/A where I was training People Living with Disabilities, most of whom are illiterate. The motivating factor for me to have this session inspite of the challenges that I anticipated was that they earn Disability grants and most of the time they do not know how their monies are handled by their family members and all of them have no savings yet they have families that they are looking after with their income. There were many challenges during the session as some of them had to wait for their assistants to explain things (deaf and blind) but I was amazed by their patience and eagerness, they were very interested in understanding more about savings as well as insurance. One of them shared that they had found out a few years ago that they were insured by various neighbors who wanted to benefit from their death and when the neighbors had a disagreement, the truth was then revealed and luckily Traditional Authority Council intervened. This made me realize that these people really need information yet we have never given them a thought as a target market for this programme, considering that some of them are born with disabilities and therefore earn an income from an early age. I aim to consult with Forum that looks after this group of people so that within each target that we get for trainings, I can set aside a few sessions for them.