THERE IS NEED FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT AMONG P.W.D.S, PSYCHOLOGIST GITAU ADVICES.

Madam Susan Gitau, a re-known counseling psychologist and the proprietor of International Psychology & Counselors Centre (IPCC) in Thika Town, has called for a paradigm shift among Persons Living With Disabilities (PWDs) in the way they perceived themselves. Speaking during the Disability Awareness Forum  at Mount Kenya University on Saturday, Madam Gitau told the PWDs that if at all they took deep reflection on themselves, they would discover the power GOD had given each one of them.

"None of us can claim perfection. We all have some sort of disability within. The negatives that we perceive about ourselves might be our greatest strengths. There is a lot of good lying within us. God gives each one of us a perfect gift that that is only unique only to ourselves. Just use what God has blessed you with to make a difference in your lives and those of others," she said. 

She told the audience that included students from both Joytown Secondary School for the Physically challenged that PWDs were never an object of sympathy since they too were abled differently. She added that noone applied to be born the way did but everyone had the choice to either accept they way they looked or to deny themselves for who others perceived them.

"You can't dictate how other people treat you but you have the power to dictate how you treat yourself. There is great power in how we think about ourselves. You should never let anyone kill your dreams. Emotional intelligence or the power to imagine what others feel by first feeling them ourselves is an art that each one of us must perfect," Mrs. Gitau said.

She asked the PWDs to always accept themselves the way they were, adding that each one of them was perfectly and wonderfully created by God. 

"Anger is destructive. Never put yourselves down. In case you you feel hurt, just learn how to let go. You got to translate the way you think. You must translate the way you react," she added.

She challenged MKUSA leadership and other aspiring candidates to use their positions to ensure that MKU was disabled friendly by partnering with the administration to ensure that MKU developed policies that enhanced affirmative actions that were in biased towards PWDs. She told them that in order to leave a legacy, they had to strive in to live in the hearts of men adding that if they never saw God in human beings then they didn't know God at all.

She promised to 'walk with Betty' (MKUSA Vice President who is a Person living in albinism) beyond Mount Kenya University. She said that Betty was a living testimony that disability was never inability.