The inaugural Broken Crayons Still Colour Beautifully Symposium offered attendees motivation, information and community with organiser, Notukela Makohliso, sharing an important message: Women with disabilities matter
The room is abuzz with chatter. Women with disabilities from all walks of life are gathered in the Artscape Theatre Centre in Cape Town awaiting the start of the inaugural Broken Crayons Still Colour Beautifully (BCSCB) Symposium. The event, held in August to commemorate women’s month, aimed to celebrate women with disabilities, motivate them to pursue their goals and inform them of the opportunities available to aid their pursuit.
“I believe that information is a powerful tool in the right hands,” says Notukela Makohliso, organiser of the Symposium. “My hope is that these ladies will take the information and inspiration to fuel their dreams and goals; to keep pushing until they achieve them. They can achieve great things.”
Notukela herself is a woman with a disability who understands the challenges the community faces. In 2017, she was in a motor vehicle accident that resulted in her becoming a hemiplegic, paralysed on the one side of her body. As a result, Notukela uses a wheelchair with no function in her right arm and a speech impediment. She was unable to continue lecturing and her business closed down while she was still in rehabilitation. Adjusting to her new life was a challenge.
“To say it was difficult is an understatement really,” she reflects. “I am still searching for the words to articulate this period of my life. I did not feel at home in my own body. I grieved the loss of my mobility, my job, my business, my car. The loss of any normalcy. It has been a couple of years now, and I am still processing the trauma, grieving, and healing.”
“Apart from losing my mobility, all sources of earning a living, and losing my life as I knew it, the most challenging part has to be trying to rebuild my life in a world that does not support me. Not being able to land a job, despite my qualifications and experience. I am no longer employable,” she continues.
“Not being able to access buildings because I’m in a wheelchair. How society looks down on me, because they are standing and I am sitting in a wheelchair. It is a completely different world with a plethora of physical, psychological and economic challenges compounded by society’s ignorance and lack of transformation and awareness,” Notukela adds. Fortunately, hope remains.
“I am now at the stage of discovery. I am no longer focusing on my limitations. I am constantly trying new things and discovering different ways to do them. Hence, I resonate better with being called differently-abled, because I am well able. My body deserves respect for its abilities not limitations. Everyone has limitations,” she says.
As Notukela entered a more peaceful, curious period of her recovery, she decided to establish the Notukela Foundation Institute (NFI) in 2019.
“I’m a gushing mother of two kings, and I always teach them to do to others as they would like to be done to them. The NFI does everything I wish I could have had available to me after I came out of the hospital,” Notukela says. “We offer trauma counselling, skills development training, mentorship, coaching, as well as storytelling across different platforms. I established the NFI to inspire, empower, and motivate women, youth and people who are differently-abled. The institution advocates and promotes the advancement of human rights and social justice.”
In 2022, her curiosity led Notukela to organising the BCSCB Symposium. Aside from the knowledge-sharing opportunity the event provided, Notukela felt it important to break women with disabilities from the isolation they often face.
“People in the community of differently-abled persons largely exist in silos. We go through trauma in isolation, suffer in isolation and even our stories stay in the shadows and are largely untold. Humans are created for relationships and community. This event is designed to bring people together, to engage, to share information, to inspire, and to celebrate our stories of resilience and tenacity,” she explains.
The need for community building was evident by the excitement in the room. The women were soon good friends chatting away with the stranger by their side. They had a shared goal and mission – to let their voices be heard, to be seen, and play an important role in society.
As Notukela points out: “Firstly, everyone deserves to feel that they are seen, that they are heard, and that they matter. Not just differently-able-bodied, but everyone. Secondly, in a world that sees difference as weakness; we need to teach differently-abled persons that they are enough.”
The event accomplished just that. Some of the presentations were more practically focused. Employees from the Department of Employment and Labour attended to share information on services available, provided free of charge, which included a rundown of what is needed to get a business registered.
Edwina Ghall, disability service manager at the University of Cape Town, spoke about the practical services available, but also gave a passionate speech on her own experience as a person with a disability and the challenges she faced as her disability was diagnosed late in life. Despite the challenges, she achieved tremendous success and found joyful employment – a message shared by others.
“Sometimes, there is nothing wrong with going a step back. Sometimes you take a step back to go forward,” said Karen Smit during her presentation at the BCSCB Symposium. She shared how she had set out to be a social worker in life, but was retrenched. She tried starting her own recruitment agency, but this too failed as businesses saw the employment of her clients as a “favour”.
Finally, she took a job in a Vodacom call centre. As fate would have it, she was only there for eight months before moving on to better things within the business. Today, she heads up the specific needs or accessibility department at the commercial business unit within Vodacom South Africa. Karen said: “When one door closes, another opens. But, you need to take action.”
She also cautioned: “Women with disabilities need to work twice as hard.” Albeit realistic in the challenges that women with disabilities might face, the speakers were extremely motivational, urging the women to see their worth.
Notukela said at the event: “If they will not give me a seat at the table, I’ll create my own table.” Miss Wheelchair South Africa, Tamelyn Bock, urged the crowd: “We will bring the change.”
In a passionate speech, Marlene Le Roux, CEO of the Artscape Theatre Centre, said: “Jobs creates dignity. And dignity gives us that we do matter in life.”
The Symposium left one hopeful, inspired and motivated. Notukela hopes to see the event return in 2023. She says: “We are planning to make this an annual event. My vision is to make it a national event, and expand to other cities.”
As for her personal journey, Notukela has some exciting ventures awaiting her. She shares: “We are about to launch our mobile app, which offers online trauma counselling and online training. [After completing the training], we will help place graduates for jobs or link them to business support entities, get them to work or to do business.
“I’m very excited, because this project will connect us with people everywhere, even in the outskirts or rural areas. It’s action and impact will be beyond my limitations; taking advantage of technology to benefit this community,” she adds.
Finally, Notukela shares some wisdom for anyone facing a challenging time, especially while recovering from an injury: “Your injury is not the end of life. You can rebuild your life, and find purpose again. Persevere because greatness awaits on the other side of the storm. ‘Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day’ (2 Corinthians 4:16).
“This passage reminds me that there is power in the crucibles that we face. Take heart, persevere. There is power in the pause to not only rehabilitate the physical body, but also your inner self,” Notukela concludes.
