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From PRI's
The World:
It can be easy to overlook the tiny South
American nation of Ecuador. Yet Ecuador stands out as one of the
region’s most advanced countries for disabled people. A major force
behind this effort is Lenin Moreno, Ecuador’s vice president. A
paraplegic, Moreno is one of the world’s highest-ranking leaders using a
wheelchair.
Lenin Moreno was once a wealthy businessman and politician. But in
1998, he was shot in the back as gunmen stole his car from a parking lot
in Quito. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Moreno overcame intense
pain and bouts of depression to become a motivational speaker. He’s
written books about the healing power of laughter.
He also performs inspirational songs.
In 2006, Moreno was elected vice president. At the time, it was rare
to see people in wheelchairs in public. In rural areas, people with
severe handicaps were treated as outcasts and sometimes confined to
sheds and chicken coops.
But Moreno has tried to change all that. Wheelchair ramps are
springing up across Ecuador. People with severe disabilities now receive
$300 monthly stipends from the government. And Moreno helped draw up a
law that compels Ecuadorian companies to set aside at least 4 percent
of jobs for people with disabilities.
In a recent speech, he pledged that the government would reach out to
all disabled people who need help. That, he said, amounts to a
revolution.
That revolution includes providing free artificial limbs to poor
Ecuadorians. Some are being built in a wing of this state-run hospital
in Quito. Government officials say the program is the only one of its
kind in Latin America.
Jorge Costa, who manages the project, says thousands of Ecuadorians
hobble around on crutches because they’re too poor to buy artificial
limbs. Now, he says, they can become productive members of society.
One person who has made this transition is Sarita Carlosama. I meet
her at a sports club where she’s playing an early-morning game of
wheelchair tennis before going to work.
A disease affecting her spinal cord left Carlosama paraplegic 20
years ago. Back then she was studying to be a doctor. But she had to
quit because there was no wheelchair access to the fifth-floor
classrooms.
Finding a job was tough. But under the new law to bring disabled
people into the work force, Carlosama was recently hired by an oil
company. Not surprisingly, she’s full of praise for Moreno.
“He has achieved so much,” Carlosama says. “But even if he hadn’t
done anything, just the fact that the vice president is in a wheelchair
changes perceptions about disabled people.”
At the presidential palace where Moreno has his office, disabled
people line up every morning seeking assistance. Upstairs, Moreno’s top
aide, Alex Camacho, says other Latin American governments have called on
Ecuador for advice on policies for disabled people.
“That’s why we are now advising to Peru, to Bogota, to Uruguay, to
Dominican Republic, to Guatemala, also to Haiti,” Camacho says.
The presidential band plays as foreign diplomats present their
credentials to Moreno. He’s now Ecuador’s acting president, because
President Rafael Correa has taken a leave of absence to campaign for
reelection later this month.
But Moreno is not on the ballot. He says he needs a break from the
exhausting schedule. Still, many of the programs Moreno put in place are
likely to continue, says Monica Alemeida, an editor at El Universo
newspaper.
“It’s by far one of the best things this government have
done,”Almeida says. “I think that whatever government that will come
will really have to follow that path that Moreno have initiated.”
It seems likely that Ecuadorians will see more of Moreno. He was
nominated last year for the Nobel Peace Prize. And there’s speculation
he will run for president in 2017.
