When I became a councillor with the Penang Island City Council (MBPP) in 2013, one of the areas I really wanted to work on was on how to improve the lives of people with disabilities (PWDs or OKU for Orang Kurang Upaya in Bahasa Malaysia).

Maybe it was because I grew up with a sister who was diagnosed with autism at a young age and the fact that I have the responsibility to take care of her for the rest of our lives. Now don’t get me wrong, she was never a burden to neither me nor my parents. In fact, she has been someone who has blessed our family with different abilities as well as being completely independent in how she manages her own schedule.

The only drawback was that she lived in her own world and we could not communicate in the interpersonal way that I could with my friends.

Although I considered myself fortunate at how independent my sister was, there are other families who are not as fortunate due to the different types of more severe disabilities out there. I felt that we should be doing more to improve the lives of our disabled citizens.

Hence I decided to concentrate my efforts into looking at how our council’s facilities and infrastructure could be further improved. You see, the key to successfully improving the lives of the disabled are tied to all Malaysians, whether able-bodied or disabled.

Disabled parking lots have been available throughout Penang for quite some time now. However, due to lack of public education, it has often been abused by able-bodied people as just another parking lot. A lot of people do not realise that disabled parking lots are bigger than ordinary lots due to the need of our wheelchair-bound citizens for the space in order for them to exit their cars into the wheelchairs.

However, there still many members of the public who lack this knowledge and thus, the abuses continue. The decision was then collectively made in the council to paint the disabled lots blue, so there will no longer be any excuses for those who park on the disabled lots. For a few months, there were still abuses but slowly it started to stop, thanks to the continuous enforcement made by our dedicated council officers and also to members of the public who reported the abuses.

Of course, parking lots are just one of the many things we can do to improve accessibility for our disabled fellow citizens of Malaysia. The council will continue to improve as a whole to provide better infrastructure and facilities because that is what we are all about, constant improvement.

The fact also remains that we must work hard to ensure changes happen, talking and criticising will only get us so far but the bottom line is we can all do our part in making Penang as well as the rest of Malaysia as a whole; a universally accessible place. Remember, we may be able-bodied now, but think about the special care needed by pregnant women as well as our senior citizens.

‘One day we might need the same facilities’

Also be aware of the fact that one day we will all become senior citizens and might need the same facilities.

Recently, Mohamad Ridzuan Mohamad Puzi, Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli, Abdul Latif Romly and Siti Noor Radiah Ismail made the nation proud by winning medals at the Summer Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Three Gold Medals and one Bronze Medal were won by our Paralympians as proof that Malaysians can be one of the best in the world in all sports.

Our national anthem was played three times in Rio and the nation was brought to tears as three athletes with disabilities proved that they no longer have to stand in the background compared to their able-bodied brothers and sisters.

More importantly, this was a long overdue wake-up call for the nation to look at our disabled brothers and sisters with pride and not pity. They are not sad stories from different families anymore but inspiring ones that will leave legacies that our children will speak fondly about. They have led the way to show us how far we can go in international sporting events.

I feel it is time for the Paralympic Games to be given equal coverage to the Olympic Games. Many Malaysians were not even aware that the Paralympic Games were going on until the first Gold Medal was won.

Let us do our part for a better tomorrow for all Malaysians regardless of abilities. If we think our lives are challenging enough, imagine the challenges of our disabled citizens. They can make us proud too, four Paralympians have even led the way to prove that fact.

CHRIS LEE CHUN KIT is a city councillor with the Penang Island City Council (Majlis Bandaraya Pulau Pinang) representing the DAP.