Finding a job has never been an easy task for Frederick Ouko. Despite university degrees and a can-do attitude, the 34-year-old Kenyan has found himself turned away from employment time and again, solely because he uses a wheelchair.
“Just the act of getting on to public transport takes a long time: first you have to wait for a bus that has enough room for you and your chair, then finally you show up at the office for the interview, and you are turned away at the door because they think you are there to beg,” says Ouko, who is from Nairobi.
“There is a general notion that if you’re disabled you don’t need to work, because your family look after you or you’re on government benefits. Not in their wildest dreams would an employer think you want to work and that you may be qualified.”
Ouko was born able-bodied but suffered polio as a child, which left him with weak legs. In the eyes of most Kenyan employers, this rendered him unemployable. So he began thinking about how to reach companies that might be interested in diversifying their labour pool, as well as how to explain the potential benefits of diversification to less progressive firms.
Government statistics concerning disability are unreliable, with the inclusion of albinism skewing numbers, but the International Labour Organisation suggests there may be as many as 3 million people living with a disability in Kenya.
Ouko began developing an online platform to match jobseekers with job providers. He named it Riziki Source, Swahili for “livelihood”. Users input their qualifications, skillset, location and disability, and are then matched with potential employers. Users’ qualifications and skillsets are visible to businesses, but not their CVs; should an employer express interest in a specific candidate, they connect through Ouko and his colleagues.
Kenya’s 2003 Persons with Disabilities Act requires both public and private firms to reserve 5% of their jobs for disabled employees. In practice, though, says Ouko, “they don’t even consider it”. “There is no monitoring. There is no coordinated effort by the government to provide jobs [to disabled people]. But there is all this unexplored talent you [as an employer] may be missing by not employing a person with a disability.”
Riziki Source has been live for six months. So far it has helped 10 jobseekers to find employment in the hotel, IT, accounting and software industries. The program was recently shortlisted for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa prize for engineering innovation, and Kenya’s department of labour has provided $30,000 (£23,800) in funding.
Ouko’s goal is to change the narrative of disability in Africa.
“We are important resources that our countries haven’t bothered investing in,” he says. “Can we normalise the challenges, and be given an opportunity that we are qualified for, whether or not we’re disabled?”
It is a question that fellow Kenyan Peter Mbiria, 26, has also been asking for the past five years. After befriending a woman with crippling arthritis, Mbiria – an able-bodied electrical engineering student in Nairobi – recognised the limitations of existing technology for disabled people.
“I could see how much she was struggling to do her daily tasks, and I wanted to make a wheelchair that would really suit her needs – one that would make her independent and mobile, comfortable and happy,” he says.
“Here in Kenya … surfaces are very uneven, mostly rocky and pretty difficult for people who use wheelchairs. In fact, even around Nairobi there are no ramps for wheelchairs.”
Mbiria points out that most wheelchairs are limited to a single function. Some are best suited to a flat surface, others to rough terrain or moving in an upright position. Few, though, are able to combine all three functionalities. Mbiria decided to change that. Combining a military tank concept with the capacity of a 4x4 and the design of a normal wheelchair, he created the “E-Con”: an all-terrain wheelchair that allows users to stand upright, climb up or down stairs, and self-navigate.
Similar to a Transformer, the wheelchair morphs from its standard shape into a vertical upright position, and can handle flat surfaces as well as rocky terrain. Each “wheel” consists of three smaller wheels, allowing for greater movement and balance.
The E-Con is still in prototype form, but Mbiria, who was also shortlisted for the Africa prize, is in talks with a Kenyan organisation over funding to build the first model, which he says will cost about $9,000. Many of the components will have to be sourced from abroad, as they are not available in Africa.
Mbiria’s arthritic friend passed away before he was able to present her with his invention, and he took her death badly. “I was very sad because I was making this for her in secret, and she left without knowing what I was preparing for her,” he says. “For a while I was heartbroken, and then I thought – ‘Well, there are many people like her who would like a wheelchair that would enable them to be independent and mobile.’”
Encouraged by that thought, Mbiria is now pushing for such wheelchairs to be made available to those in need without delay.
“Once people are mobile and independent, they can focus on their dreams, their goals in life, themselves,” he says. “These other challenges have been taken away from them. Now they can ask themselves, ‘Can I start my own business? What can I do for my community? What do I want to be?’”
