THIS week I am happy to speak to Felix Simulunga and I hope this story will inspire and encourage you.

Mr Simulunga welcome to this interview, please tell us about yourself:

Thank you Doctor, I was born in Mbala, in the northern part of Zambia, in 1970 on the 20th of November in a polygamous family of 17 people i.e. a father, two mothers and 14 children.

My father was a mechanic working for Mechanical Services Branch (retired in 1990) and my mother was and is still a marketeer selling things like tomato and other vegetables on a very small-scale.

Both my father and mother are of a humble educational background. I became a polio victim at the age of 2 years which has left my lower limbs physically paralysed for the rest of my life. With lack of devices like crutches and wheelchairs, I used to crawl on the ground to move from one place to another from my childhood I believed that disability is not inability.

My disability received a lot of mixed reactions in my family with my mother taking more blame for my state.

I was regarded as a person who was going to be dependent on my parents for the rest of my life.

My father never thought that it was meaningful to educate a disabled person.

Once in a while, we could gather as a family and my father would start narrating what he expected of each child – to get educated and when it was my turn he could look at me with sympathy and say “as for you my son, don’t worry.

Since you can’t go to school, we will ensure that we look after you till our death”. This remark, though innocently made, was as a result of the general notion that people have against persons with disabilities as people who cannot do anything in life for themselves apart from being cared for.

However, despite this background, my mother – with her humble education – saw the need to have me educated and, even with protests from my father decided to send me to school.

In 1978, after undergoing an operation on my lower limbs, I started my Grade one (1) at Chileshe Chepela Wansongo School for the Disabled in Kasama in the Northern part of Zambia.

My hard work at school saw me by-pass Grade 4 and went straight to Grade 5. I later went to Grade eight (8) at Kasama Boys Secondary School where I did my junior secondary school education i.e. from Grade 8 up to Grade 9.

I completed my senior secondary school education in 1988 at Mungwi Secondary Technical School with good results.

In 1989 I went into the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Zambia (UNZA). My aim was to major in Mathematics but a year later I failed to go through to the next stage after failing in two subjects.

The failing was because of the inhibitive architectural barriers in the University Campus which rendered my mobility from one place to the other very difficult.

A few months before I left the University of Zambia, two disabled colleagues of mine – Chola Kafwabulula (now CEO at Food Reserve Agency) and Dr Felix Silwimba (now Director General at Zambia Agency for Persons with Disabilities) helped me secure my first wheelchair courtesy of the Finnish government.

After leaving UNZA, I stayed with my brother in Chingola for three years from 1990 to 1993 after which I enrolled for a three-year Diploma Course in Computer Studies at Evelyn Hone College which I finished in 1995.

Immediately after finishing my course I was employed by an organisation calling itself Hands Ministries (Z) Ltd as a Computer Instructor.

In 1997 I left Hands and worked on temporal basis with a programme under the Zambia Federation of the Disabled (ZAFOD) called Advocacy And Action Zambia (AAAZ) whose major aim was to advocate for the implementation of the United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities.

I eventually joined ZAFOD itself as Administrative Secretary in June 1998 on a two-year renewable contract.

Two years later, I was promoted as Chief Executive of the organisation when the position fell vacant and held that position up to December 2010 when I resigned to go and manage my private business namely a private school – Simfex Academy – which I own and run.

My work at the helm of the Zambia Federation of the Disabled was very challenging and also interesting.

At the time I took the position of Chief Executive of ZAFOD, I was the only employee in the organisation and realised that for us to respond effectively and efficiently to the many challenges facing the organisation, we had to have sufficient resources.

With the help of many partners such as POWER International of UK, Finnish Disabled Peoples International Development Association (FIDIDA), Action on Disability and Development (ADD), Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD), Norwegian International Aid Agency (NORAD), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Irish Aid and other partners, ZAFOD grew from 1 person in 2000 to 25 persons in 2010 at the time I left the organisation;

Together with my colleagues we managed to increase the number of projects that ZAFOD was running as well as its annual income from the initial amount of US$20,000 to US$500,000 due to successful project proposal formulation and implementation;

Also taking into consideration ZAFOD’s aim of alleviating the mobility problems being experienced by persons with physical disabilities, I managed to mobilise more than 100 wheelchairs and distributed them countrywide to various individuals with disabilities;

I spearheaded, for the first time in the history of Zambia, the participation of persons with disabilities in the 2001 Electoral process, review of the Electoral Act as well as formulation of the Fifth National Development Plan;

Through ZAFOD advocacy programmes, under my planning, implementation and supervision, we saw for the first time in the history of Zambia politicians and other stakeholders openly talk about issues of persons with disabilities at many fora with some political parties including in their manifestos and constitutions issues on disability.

I led a process of formulating a National Plan of Action (NPA) on disability in Zambia using participatory methodologies involving a team of 64 field workers in an exercise that covered a total of 22 districts in all the 10 provinces of Zambia with wide consultations involving 1,655 people from all walks of life.

I also coordinated a team of professionals from the University of Zambia Institute for Economic and Social Research (INESOR), Central Statistical Office (CSO), SINTEF Health Research Foundation in Norway and Organisations of Persons with Disabilities in Zambia in carrying out a national-wide study on the Living Conditions among Persons with Disabilities.

I was lead Consultant in the inclusion of Disability and Development issues in the Zambian Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP) 2006 to 2010 where for the first time in the history of the nation, disability issues became part of the national agenda and were allocated a sum of ZMK167.9 billion for implementation.

I was among a group of 3 persons with disabilities that represented Disabled Peoples Organizations at the 500 plus membership National Constitutional Conference in 2007 to 2010 that sat to review the Zambian Constitution with a view to coming up with a new one.

For your letters please send to us on P.O. BOX 34490 Lusaka, Zambia or use our South African Address.

The author is Regional Disability policy Analyst for SADC and Inclusive Development Advisor for Centre for Disability Development Research, Law and Policy, Johannesburg

Project Office, P.O. BOX 1981 New Castle, 2940 South Africa

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