“Disability disqualifies you from being admitted into our school.” These were the painful words said to Gugu Mjilo’s mother as she tried to get her daughter into local primary schools at Hlokozi, a rural area in the southern part of KwaZulu-Natal.
As a result Mjilo, who is now 30 and is wheelchair-bound as she was born with quadriplegia, only started schooling when she was 12 years old at grade 3. And she has never looked back. Recently she enrolled as a PhD student in political science at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).
“It was always my mother’s dream for me to get educated but coming from a disadvantaged family it was not easy for her to raise a disabled child with nothing. She told me that when I was five years old she tried to enrol me at the local crèche but was turned away because of my disability. She went to another school, where she was told my disability doesn’t qualify me to be part of their school,” Mjilo said.
Mjilo said she spent the next seven years sitting at home as her family could not afford to send her to a special needs school because of a lack of money.
“It was a painful period in my life to see my cousins going to school and my wish was to also wear a uniform and be part of them. The schools did not think they could deal with a disabled person.
"Finally when I was 12, a principal from a primary school in a nearby village told my mother to bring me to the school. After we had an interview with him he was impressed by my level of intelligence and decided that I should start at grade 3 – and I have never looked back.”
Mjilo said her primary school days were not easy as she did not have a wheelchair and her grandmother had to carry her to and from school every day.
“That was the energy that made me to push myself even harder and I am very proud to say I did well in my studies without repeating any grades.
"I enrolled at UKZN and I completed my first degree in record time. I struggled to get a job even after I completed my honours but I was eventually employed by the KwaZulu-Natal department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs,” she said.
She is now busy with her PhD, which she said was still at the proposal stage, in which she will look at the level of access to education for people with disabilities.
Mjilo said in June last year she wrote an autobiography about living with a disability called Akulahlwa Mbeleko Ngakufelwa, derived from a Zulu proverb about hope and second chances, to inspire people in the same situation as her.
“The book paints a picture of the lives of people with disabilities, especially in rural areas. I consider it a teaching tool about disability that also gives hope to others with the same challenges.
"Despite having a disability, I have been able to attain most of the things that people thought are only meant for able-bodied people. Everything is possible if you put your mind to it and if you challenge yourself to do more than what is expected of you, especially for someone with a disability,” she said.
The book is available from all major book retailers.
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