By Kefa Senoga
Daniel Kunya has no power to change the perception people may have about his abilities because of a disfigured right leg. His power is in his reaction to that judgment.
Kunya, born with a significantly shorter right leg, says his parents prepared him well for a world of ridicule, where some people cast doubt on ability for those with disabilities. He says he has been mocked by contemporaries throughout his life. In November last year, as he campaigned to be the Uganda Christian University (UCU) Mbale Campus Guild President, a competitor took jabs at Kunya’s uncommon gait.
“One of the candidates in the race told students not to allow a man with a disability to lead them,” Kunya says, adding: “However, the students chose me.”
According to the 30-year-old, the counseling and support he got from his parents enabled him to develop a thicker skin to persevere through bullying to become a student leader throughout his education. He is the second of four children of Kunya Fred and Mukimba Rose of Namutumba district in eastern Uganda.
He attended St Henry’s School Wakiso for his primary education, where he served as the pupils’ leader in charge of sanitation. At Kawala College School, where he attended O’level, Kunya was the student leader in charge of the dining hall.
While he had no official, documented leadership role at Apass Secondary School in Kampala, where he attended A’level, he jumped back into leadership when running for the apex student position of Guild President, which he got.
At the same time, Kunya, a UCU year-two student of Bachelor of Social Work and Social Administration, is leading and working in finance and farming.
Through his work as a Social Banking Officer with Opportunity Bank, a financial institution in Uganda, Kunya has been responsible for formal banking clients. As a community-based trainer, he has been able to train more than 1,000 youths in Village Savings and Loans Association, as well as in financial literacy.
He also is actively engaged in farming, dispelling perceptions that this physical work is beyond the grasp of a person with special needs.
“This season, I harvested five acres of rice in Namutumba and last season, I had an onion farm in Namisindwa,” Kunya says. Both Namutumba and Namisindwa are districts in eastern Uganda.
Seeing the challenges that people living with disabilities often face in communities, Kunya appeals for a society that is more tolerant and appreciative of their unique physical challenges.
On many buildings in Uganda, including in schools, there are neither ramps or lifts, meaning Kunya and many people like him will find a challenge in accessing such places.
Despite his accomplishments and the brave face that Kunya usually has, at the end of the day, he has human emotions. He says although he stays purpose-focused, especially when he is mocked, there are days when the psychological torture that he encounters overwhelms him, sometimes reducing him to tears.
He has a message to those who invoke psychological torture to those living with disabilities.
“All of us are candidates for disability because you can be moving around and you get involved in an accident,” said Kunya.
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