At 10,000 feet, we are all equal

Recently at aero in Friedrichshafen Lydia met with the disabled flying club from Germany.

Encouragement is key when you are the only disabled pilot in your part of the world.

Thanks go to our German rolling flyers for their support and encouragement to Lydia.

Disabled Flyme day

Our first successful ' disabled fly me day' was a joint effort of the 99s from 3 continents. Dr Carol Munch from the USA, Ute Hoelscher from Germany and Patricia Mawuli from Ghana assisted by the Aviation and Technology Academy girls (also 99s) from Kpong.

Inspired and financially supported by the efforts and experience of Ute in Germany, where she works principally with visually impaired and blind youngsters, we tried to make a similar event happen last year, but without success.

This year however Ute, Carol, Safi and Mavs ( whose krobo language skills were outstanding) visited the education department and convinced the relevant responsible adults that flying disabled students was a viable and inspirational opportunity - and went on to prove it!

Francis and Emmanuel Norman with Mike Pullen, MoMies from Germany, provided musical interaction including drumming on backs of the hearing impaired ( gently), as well as donating a variety of educational and gastronomic gifts for them to take home.

We flew 6 children during the 3 hour programme, 4 visually impaired and 2 with hearing challenges. The teachers present also gained from the experience and we hope that this will be the beginning of a regular feature in our calendar.

Our challenge with recognition of equality of disabled people in Ghana made progress and we hope to be able to build on this modest success in the coming years. Disability awareness and acceptance in the rural communities is a challenge we see as a part of our health education outreach.

MoM has a fantastic set of 99ers in its ranks, with our 99 chapter at Kpong inspired and supported by Melissa Pemberton, who provided the Polaroid camera that enabled each student to take home a photo of themselves next to an aeroplane!

Thank you ladies, thank you MoMies, thank you 99ers, but most of all, thank you to the responsible adults who enabled these young people to have a day that has inspired them towards a future of equality.

It's our battle cry.. EDUCATION!!!!!!

The challenge of education especially in relation to disability and even basic deformity is a major challenge. ..even in the cities. A recent story about a woman being told to abandon her child because it has a mild deformity (see link below) is not unusual.

The story tells us that even the pastors are lacking in suitable education, and that the secondary reliance on traditional priests is not uncommon. Hence the parents were told that their child was evil and a snake disguised as a human.

The positive aspect of this story is that there are decent people who intervene and a court system that takes seriously the needs of such cases if and when they reach the authorities. Education is key to saving and changing lives.

This story may upset some readers.

http://mobile.ghanaweb.com/wap/article.php?ID=262582