PHOTO: Daintowon Domah Paybayee
By Leila B. Gbati-PwD Reporting Fellow
Although, there are parents who do not see the best in their disabled kids, the parents of Ms. Daintowon Domah Paybayee are different.
They saw the best in their kid and provided her with an opportunity to acquire education, giving her all the moral and financial support. And today, she is heading the body that oversees persons with disabilities in the Republic of Liberia, the National Commission on Disabilities (NCD).
Speaking with this Reporter prior to her appointment as head of the National Commission on Disabilities by President George Weah, Ms. Paybayee explained that during one of the training she attended, the facilitator told them that disability is life time, but if they remove self-pity and build self-esteem they will have a voice in society.
After the training, she decided to do things independently. The now NCD boss said she told her mother that she wanted to live by herself and her mother was worried.
Notwithstanding, she wanted to see whether she could go to work come and back, cook and do other things, as well live just like a normal person who does not have disability lives, she narrated.
“So I had to leave from home and moved in the New Georgia Estate Community and my aunt also brought a one year old child to live with me and today, that child is 12 years old,” she said.
“Gradually, it started to build me up but most of all capacity building helped me build resilience and from there I started seeing myself like any other person. So, the only time I know that I have disability is when I look at my whole body in the mirror or when am walking with people and they are walking faster than me. Than I would say to myself, you have impairment and cannot walk like the way they are walking,” this prominent physically challenge Liberian woman asserted.
Born August 4, 1983, it is worth noting that Daintowon Domah Paybayee became disabled after spending the first five years of her life as an able bodied person.
Growing up, she had a dependency syndrome and felt that people should help her in everything that she needed to do. But this changed after many years living with this condition.
Although she is a person living with disability, Ms. Paybayee has not allowed herself to be consumed by her condition. One of the things she consistently says is: “Disability is not inability”.
She has also ventured into difficult territories, one of which was when she contested in the 2017 elections as representative aspirant of Montserrado County District #13.
Due to her advocacy for persons with disabilities (PwDs), she also participated in and presented papers on issues affecting PwDs at the Vision 2030 Conference in Suakoko, Bong County.
As part of her advocacy for PwDs, Ms. Paybayee also worked with the United Nations Mission In Liberia (UNMIL) Human Rights and Protection Section, developing and issuing papers that captured all of the issues PwDs are faced with, something that made her to visit Liberia’s 15 counties Liberia.
Because she is educated and wants the best for those in the same condition as her, she played an active role during the formulation of the act that created the National Commission on Disabilities (NCD), an institution she currently heads today as the Director.
Ms. Paybayee advocacy has over the years been wide-ranging. She played an active role towards the Affirmative Action Bill, Domestic Violence Bill and Inclusive Female Genital Mutilation Bill.
“I believe in the baby mama theory because when a child is born today it will sit down one place and after sometime it starts to turn and next it is ready to sit, stand, walk and talk so, if that child can become a pilot, I too can become a pilot because they learn it so whatever and whoever someone becomes in life, I can become the same and I just built that mindset that I can do anything that anybody can do that which has basically been me and I have been going after it through a right base approach,” she said.
The new National Disabilities Commission head says her next action is to make sure that in every sector of government, persons with disabilities will be at the decision making table.
According to her, this can only be achieved when more parents start to provide an opportunity for their disabled kids and that the government provides the necessary means for all children, including those with disabilities.
Publication of this article was made possible with support from Internews Inclusive Media project.