{"id":7426,"date":"2024-09-18T09:23:19","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T07:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disabilityconnect.co.za\/?p=7426"},"modified":"2024-09-18T09:23:19","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T07:23:19","slug":"confronting-stigma-head-on-capetonians-shona-and-vic-have-been-transforming-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/18\/confronting-stigma-head-on-capetonians-shona-and-vic-have-been-transforming-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Confronting stigma head-on, Capetonians Shona and Vic have been transforming\u00a0lives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For two Capetonians, using their passion to take on major personal challenges has transformed both their lives \u2013 and potentially the lives of hundreds of thousands of others \u2013 and made what seems miraculous the new norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Chris Bateman – Daily Maverick<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The genesis of Shona McDonald\u2019s Shonaquip Social Enterprise<\/a>, which designs and makes international award-winning assistive devices, was the birth of her second daughter, Shelly, who has cerebral palsy. McDonald resisted professional advice to place Shelly, now 42, in a home. Instead, she turned her attention to making their lives as functional as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She built what she claims was the first paediatric electric wheelchair in Africa in her garage, which meant that, at 18 months old, her daughter could move herself around independently, indoors and outdoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the 1980s, even manual paediatric wheelchairs were unavailable in Africa and certainly not electric-powered ones, let alone any for children with cerebral palsy,\u201d McDonald says. \u201cI moved on to building equipment that could be used in rugged rural areas, not just indoors and outdoors or on flat areas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, ShonaquipSE offers a popular array of buggies and wheelchairs that can be adapted to accommodate any kind of disability and are in use globally. They are distributed to seven African countries, Georgia in Eastern Europe and, most recently, the UK. In South Africa, McDonald supplies the government through the departments of Health and Basic Education via tender, and works with local medical aids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe idea is to get children with disabilities the assistive devices they need so they can access early childhood development, get a decent education and find jobs,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McDonald is an adviser to the World Health Organization. She also sits on the boards of the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals and ATscale, the Global Partnership for Assistive Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Vic McKinney, the catalyst to his transformation was a life-shattering road accident in 1987 involving him and his dad, a former Irish national footballer who was also named Vic. Vic Senior was killed and Vic Junior was rendered quadriplegic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McDonald and McKinney became firm friends after she first helped him to design his wheelchair 34 years ago. McKinney moved on from studying fine art to obtain a PhD in disability studies at the University of Cape Town and is a postdoctoral re\u00adsearch fellow in the Division of Disability and Rehabilitation Studies at Stellenbosch University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He also teaches and often contributes to disability awareness presentations for McDonald\u2019s nonprofit organisation, which conducts outreach service missions to rural, impoverished communities, where people with disabilities have struggled for years, unaware of what assistance is possible in the public healthcare sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transforming lives<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Together, McKinney and McDonald are striving to transform the lives of people with disabilities, and they are confronting prejudice and stigma head-on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McKinney\u2019s initial battle with depression and feeling overwhelmed (an only son, he idolised his father and was himself a talented footballer) has ended in triumph, with him achieving what many young men dream of and take for granted \u2013 falling in love, getting married and raising a family. McKinney and his wife Emma (who has a hearing impairment and a PhD in business administration focusing on the employment of people with disabilities) have two sons, James (13) and Benjamin (9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McKinney admits to having bought into the \u201cmedical model of disability\u201d, which views the person with disability as a helpless figure in need of constant care and charity, when he first experienced being unable to get up at 2am and paint when the muse was upon him. \u201cI would implode instead of creatively explode,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A painting by Vic McKinney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

His \u201cbiggest hang-up\u201d for a long time was that anything he did was \u201cnever going to be as good as it could have been\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve no idea what paralysis is about and you\u2019re experiencing in yourself an in\u00ad\u00adability to do what you want, so you start buying into the \u2018I am disabled\u2019 school of thinking. That\u2019s what I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty easy to say, ag well, stuff it! But I get amazing support from my family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What helped, although he has mixed feelings about \u201cdeserving it\u201d, was a settlement payout resulting from his accident. This gave him the financial means for home and support staff to bolster his recovery and develop self-sufficiency over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel I represent what is possible for someone with a disability when given the right support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m also aware that I\u2019ve been extremely privileged and fortunate to have the opportunities I\u2019ve had \u2013 opportunities that all people with disabilities in South Africa have a right to but are being denied for \u00adseveral reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This author first met McKinney in July 2008, when he was a bachelor living in Marina da Gama with a full-time male nurse carer, revelling in his mouth painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He believes the lack of visibility of people with disabilities in society (despite 14% of South Africans being disabled in some way) and the failure to integrate them into the mainstream are to blame for widespread prejudice and ignorance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McKinney also highlights the urgent need for disability-inclusive education and training for students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McDonald says her proudest achievement these days is ShonaquipSE\u2019s outreach programme in which thousands of \u201cnetwork parents\u201d, who receive training by WhatsApp, help to identify barriers in service delivery and contact other families with children with disabilities who need information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These parents link up the families in remote communities who would most benefit from information, assessments, equipment and support services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cape Town duo are showing that miracles can result when determination and a pinch of empathy are added to ubuntu. DM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story first appeared in our weekly <\/em>Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For two Capetonians, using their passion to take on major personal challenges has transformed both their lives \u2013 and potentially the lives of hundreds of thousands of others \u2013 and made what seems miraculous the new norm. By Chris Bateman – Daily Maverick The genesis of Shona McDonald\u2019s Shonaquip Social Enterprise, which designs and makes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,37],"tags":[39,41,440,572,573],"class_list":["post-7426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disability-spotlight","category-focus","tag-disability","tag-disability-connect","tag-shona-mcdonald","tag-shonaquip-social-enterprise","tag-vic-mckinney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}