Nosintu Mcimeli Kwepile, the founder of nonprofit organisation Abanebhongo Persons with Disabilities in Sihlabeni village in Nqamakwe, started her organisation to educate people about the rights and dignity of people living with disabilities in rural areas.
Kwepile, 48, started the organisation in 2019 after noticing that people with disabilities were often excluded from various activities in their communities.
Her NPO supports people with disabilities through a variety of programmes.
They visit families of people who live with disabilities, educate them on how to take care of them properly, and run a sanitary pad drive for schoolgirls with disabilities.
Last summer, the NPO successfully established 28 gardens at different households to help fight food insecurity.
“In the villages we have visited, we first taught people to accept their disability so that they can be able to live with it,” Kwepile said.
The NPO also got more than 10 people with disabilities to get involved in tasks such as growing small vegetable gardens or helping run soup kitchens to give them something productive to do and help break the stereotype that people with disabilities are unable to work.
Kwepile said it was financially challenging running the NPO as she did not have any sponsors and she had to use money from her own disability grant to run it.
“We do not have transport to visit townships that are a bit far and we have a shortage of gardening tools to continue with our gardening projects.
“We would appreciate donations of seedlings and water,” she said.
Nosintu taught me how to take care of myself and people who are around me
Youth Mgqoboka, 26, from Xilinxa in Nqamakwe, said she had learnt a lot about her disability after having worked with Kwepile for a few years.
“I went to Nosintu because I had not yet accepted my disability because I did not understand it,” she said.
“She made me get involved in projects that required physical participation, since I have a disability with my hand.
“She once took me to Gauteng for a workshop for people living with disabilities to educate each other about the disabilities we have and also how to deal with society when you are a person with a disability.
“Nosintu taught me how to take care of myself and people who are around me, so that I can be able to use my physical ability when I have my own children in future.”
She said she had nominated Kwepile as a local hero because she had introduced caregivers in the community, helped young people through her sanitary pad drive and also provided food parcels for those in need using money from her own disability grant.
DispatchLIVE
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