Weekend View: On Being The First MBPJ Councillor

LAST week was incredible!

On Tuesday, it was the much-awaited glorious day when I – together with 23 other Petaling Jaya councillors – was sworn-in to our official posts.

The evening before was a madhouse!

I suddenly discovered to my dismay that the Batik shirt that I had planned on wearing for the occasion was inappropriate attire.

But thank God for Andrew Martin’s.

My best able-bodied chum rushed out to some PJ clothing stores – and then to Kuala Lumpur – and finally found a ready-made long-sleeved shirt that was my size.

The next morning at 8, the PJ City Council (MBPJ)’s van - “my limousine” - was at my house. It had a wheelchair-lift that nicely picked me up in my wheelchair into the vehicle.

After my four wheels were firmly secured by safety belts to the floor of the van, my 10-minute ride began.

Although it was a very short trip, what a journey of history in the making it was!

I could not help getting choked up over all that was happening, considering what a tremendous honour it was for me that I was about to be the first Malaysian in a wheelchair to be declared as a city councillor.

Not only that, but also realising the fact that to my knowledge that this would also be the first time in our nation’s history that a wheelchair-user was going to be represented in a high position at a local council.

It was a milestone and victorious moment; not only for me, but also one that I could ecstatically share with every single disabled Malaysian in the nation.

Luckily for me my emotional outburst occurred in the van and not during the ceremony.

Only the van driver and his assistant saw me struggling to blink away the tears from my eyes.

MBPJ deserves credit for their brand new disabled-friendly van. It is available without charge for use by the disabled and the poor in PJ.

I hope every single local council in Malaysia will also follow suit by providing at least one vehicle for a start for its handicapped residents.

Transportation remains a major problem for the physically handicapped in our country.

On the way to the MBPJ headquarters – and later inside and outside the building – I could see that there was much to be done in becoming a truly disabled-friendly city.

The outside environment with its hostile and unfriendly pavements and public utilities, the disabled-friendly car parks at the wrong place and the uneven floors for wheelchairs inside the building are just some of them.

During my remarks at our first meeting, I requested for help from everyone to transform PJ into a model city for all disabled persons. They include a wide range of handicapped residents: the blind, Deaf, people with learning disabilities, epileptics, stroke, and more.

What a delight it was to receive a thumping applause from everybody to the suggestion.

Thursday saw me planting my first tree ever in Taman Jaya in MBPJ’s go green event.

I was thrilled to bits when PJ Mayor Datuk HJ Mohamad Roslan Bin Sakiman invited me to plant a tree at the occasion.

The initiative was totally Datuk Roslan’s. I was glad that my mayor had not forgotten me in the exercise that required each councillor to plant their own tree.

Not only that, but he and other councillors also assisted me in the process. This spoke volumes about how community effort was needed if the disabled are to participate equally in our society.

Because Taman Jaya continues to remain inaccessible to wheelchair-users, one of the councillors kindly volunteered to look after my tree daily during his morning jogs in the public park.

My job really is to get the garden – and all others in PJ – to be fully accessible to all persons, especially persons with disabilities.

The moment was highly significant for me and the disabled community for two reasons.

One was the fact that I have lived next to the garden most of my life since a teenager and had little chance to access it because of its disabled-unfriendliness.

And two, the image of a person in a wheelchair, pouring water over a newly planted tree in a local government event, will go a long way to encourage more families to come out and participate in society with their disabled siblings, children or elderly parents.

It is a powerful way to also counter negative images always portraying disabled persons in hospitals and charity institutions with glum faces.

Saturday was the mass swearing-in day for all Selangor state councillors at the Jubli Perak Hall in Shah Alam.

Whilst Gurdip Kaur (Selayang) and I were delighted to receive our certificates from the Selangor Metri Besar, we were most disappointed to find the building’s toilets inaccessible to our wheelchairs.

We need to rectify this at once.

The End