Programme Director;
Deputy Minister for Social Development, Ms Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu;
Director-General of Social Development, Mr Coceko Pakade;
Senior managers of the Department of Social Development;
Leaders of national disability organisations in South Africa;
Members of the media;
Ladies and gentlemen.

The United Nations General Assembly in 1993, through Resolution 47/3, proclaimed the date of 3 December as an International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
South Africa has been celebrating and observing the International Day of Persons with Disabilities annually since 1997.  In 2009, South Africa introduced the concept of coordinating activities of the National Disability Rights Awareness Month, as a build up to 3 December.
Cabinet in 2013 approved that November 3 to December 3 be observed as National Disability Rights Awareness Month, and that December 3 be observed as the National Day of Persons with Disabilities.
This provides the country with an opportunity to showcase and celebrate progress made in realising the political and socio-economic rights of persons with disabilities as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, including the rights to equality, dignity and self-reliance.
We launch the 2014 National Disability Rights Awareness Month within an environment of the current Administration re-committing government to build on the gains made during the first 20 years of democracy, in improving the lives of persons with disabilities.
President Zuma, in his Inaugural Address on May 24, 2014, noted that “We have successfully completed the first phase of transformation. Today marks the beginning of the second phase of our transition from apartheid to a national democratic society. This second phase will involve the implementation of radical socio-economic transformation policies and programmes over the next five years.”
President Zuma elaborated on this commitment in his June 2014 State of the Nation Address by emphasising that this radical socio-economic transformation needs to be inclusive, when he committed the current administration with regards to equitable outcomes for persons with disabilities, and I quote:
“To further consolidate our democratic gains, we will continue to advance and improve the lives of people with disabilities over the next five years. We will work with the disability sector to identify key areas in which we should fulfil South Africa’s role as signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol.”
This was followed by an announcement in the Policy and Budget Vote Speech of the Presidency in July 2014 that a Presidential Working Group on Disability is to be established.

Fellow South Africans, 2014 is a year of celebrating our twenty years of democracy.  This year’s National Disability Rights Awareness Month will therefore be a reflection on what the past 20 years of freedom have meant to persons with disabilities and their families.
If we close our eyes and travel back in time to 1994, we recall how it was for our citizens with disabilities who braved the bullets and bomb threats to cast their votes first in the days towards April 27.  We recall the pictures of voters being pushed to the polling stations in wheelbarrows.
Where do we come from?
Persons with disabilities had no rights before 1994.  They had no recourse even if they were denied basic services such as education, health, rehabilitation and social grants on the basis of race, geographical location, gender, age or ability, as these were deemed privileges of a few.
But this only served to galvanise persons with disabilities to action, and the release of the Disability Rights Charter of South Africa in 1992 set the tone for how disability was to be approached in our new democracy.
The inclusion of the equality and non-discrimination clause in the Bill of Rights, with discrimination on the basis of disability specifically outlawed, was the first concrete step in entrenching a rights-based approach towards disability in the new South Africa.
We salute the disability rights activists in general, and Disabled People South Africa in particular, for the revolutionary work done before and after the 1994 elections in securing the rights of persons with disabilities as equal citizens.
We further salute the sterling work done by the late Member of Parliament, Me Maria Rantho, as the first MP with a disability in our democratic Parliament.  The one voice in 1994 has grown to eleven MPs with disabilities in 2014, 72 local councillors with disabilities and with persons with disabilities representing the voice of the sector in institutions such as the South African Human Rights Commission, the Commission on Gender Equality, the Board of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the National Youth Development Agency and many transformation and developmental entities.
We owe it to veterans such as the late Friday Mavuso, Maria Rantho, Phindi Mavuso and many more to work together in rebuilding representative organisations of persons with disabilities to enable them to empower new generations of activists who can take up the many opportunities created through an enabling and affirmative legislative and policy framework.
The passing of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, the Employment Equity Act, the Preferential Procurement Act, the release of the White Paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy, White Paper 6 on Inclusive Education, among others, provided an environment in which opportunities have been created.
A challenge which we need to collectively tackle is improving the empowerment of persons with disabilities through accessible disability information services, inclusive early childhood development opportunities, accessible rehabilitation services, quality inclusive lifelong education and training and peer counselling services, and removing barriers to the built environment, transport systems and communication.  This will enable persons with disabilities to take up the opportunities created in much larger numbers, improving our performance in achieving equity targets.
It is with pride and purpose that South Africa participates in the international arena when it comes to the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities.
We take pride that the South African experience helped shape the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Continental Plan for the Africa Decade of Persons with Disabilities.  We remain committed to ensure that the Post 2015 Development Agenda and the Africa 2063 Agenda likewise guarantees that no-one is left behind, and that the reduction of inequality, exclusion, segregation and marginalisation experienced by persons with disabilities in, for example, the Millennium Development Goals, be reversed by putting mechanisms in place that will ensure equitable access and participation by persons with disabilities.
Where to from here?
Fellow South Africans, as I indicated earlier, President Zuma has set the tone for action for the current Administration by committing to the development of a clear programme of action for persons with disabilities from 2014-2019 to ensure that the vision of the National Development Plan also becomes a reality for persons with disabilities, wherein we as social partners together move South Africa forward through empowered and inclusive communities that uphold the rights of persons with disabilities to equality, dignity and self-reliance.
We are at an advanced stage of finalising the National Disability Rights Policy, which includes a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework through which we will be able to track progress made in eradicating inequalities and reducing poverty among persons with disabilities and their families.
The Month will conclude with the National Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3, which will bring together disability rights activists and Members of Parliament in dialogue.
In May 2014 President Zuma announced the reconfiguration of the state machinery aimed at consolidating and strengthening service delivery.  We remain committed to ensuring that the shift of the national coordinating mechanism for the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities to Social Development, result in, better and more responsive services to persons with disabilities to enable them to take up the opportunities created.
We call on leaders in government, business, our communities and faith-based organisations, to work together in making this month a watershed event to which we can look back in another twenty years and celebrate the beginning of a second phase of radical socio-economic transformation where persons with disabilities were able to play a central role.
But above all, we call on the media to tell the story of persons with disabilities’ struggles, achievements, contributions and victories, not as victims, not as heroes, but as ordinary South Africans contributing to the building of a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to launch the 2014 National Disability Rights Awareness Month under the theme, Celebrating 20 years of the rights of persons with disabilities in our Democracy!  Together we move South Africa forward through radical socio-economic transformation.
The 2014 United Nations International Day for Persons with Disabilities theme – “Sustainable Development: The Promise of Technology” – highlights one of the elements of radical socio-economic transformation we need to unleash in accelerating the removal of physical and communication barriers which continue to exclude and marginalise persons with disabilities as equal citizens.

The Department of Social Development takes pride with the progress made during 2014 after we declared 2014 the Year of Persons with Disabilities.

Media enquiries may be forwarded to Ms Lumka Oliphant on 083 484 8067 or LumkaO@dsd.gov.za

I thank you.