Blind paralegal bemoans depiction of the physically challenged in local movies

They are usually portrayed as helpless people who can’t fend for themselves in local movies but one of their kind has spoken against it.

According to him, being physically challenged doesn’t mean one can’t even differentiate between salt and sugar as seen in movies.

Carruthers Tetteh who went blind at age 11, has asked movie producers in Ghana to stop depicting the disabled as such.

“We always and only concentrate of the negative aspect of having a disability. When you watch mostly our Ghanaian movies, they only depict persons with disability as poor people, helpless people ‘wretched people’, people who are just good for nothing. You’ll see in a movie, a visually impaired is not able to detect between salt and sugar which can’t be true in reality…,” he told GhanaWeb in an interview.

According to Carruthers, several disabled persons can take care of their every day needs with little to no assistance and that should be promoted in movies.

He said: “I can cook any food that I want to eat and you will enjoy it but we don’t see in our Ghanaian movies and it just reinforces the discrimination that we experience in society, the erroneous perception that persons with disability can’t do anything.”

Carruthers pointed out that the achievement of several physically challenged people in Ghana is enough proof that they can excel if given the needed opportunity.

“All that we need from the society is to believe in us, to give us the necessary support and give us the opportunity and we’ll be able to excel.”

He further added that every human has challenges, hence, it’s not just the physically challenged who need assistance.

“Yours maybe an internal challenge that may be greater than myself so it tends to establish that we need other’s support and I believe that with that we can build a better nation," he said.

Carruthers appeared on the July edition of GhanaWeb’s The Untold to share his life experiences.

He encouraged persons with disability in Ghana not to look down on themselves as they are capable of achieving any goal they set for themselves.