To mark national Casual Day on 6 September, the University of Pretoria's Disability Unit, which is being renamed and rebranded to Access, Disability and Inclusion Services (ADIS), is on a mission to reach students across all UP campuses to raise awareness about the support and services on offer for students living with disabilities.

Since its inception in 1994, Casual Day has grown into the largest and most successful national fundraising and awareness campaign, and UP has successfully participated in the annual Casual Day awareness and fundraising initiatives over the years.

Juan Erwee, the manager of ADIS, says the team is on a quest to reach students, as not everyone who needs assistance is aware of what’s available to them. As a former UP student in the early 2000s, he knows too well how challenging navigating campus life can be without the appropriate help and support. Erwee has been visually impaired since he was 18 years old, and holds a nuanced understanding of what it means to live with a disability.

“The word disability is a social construct,” he explains. “It’s an abstract thing. If you get right down to it, it means a person has an impairment, and they experience barriers as a result of that impairment. The barriers aren’t always due to the impairment itself. Barriers can occur because of policies, the built environment, or people’s attitudes towards the impairment.

“So, if I use myself as an example, I've got a visual impairment – my eyes don't work a hundred percent. Due to the fact that I don't see well, I have barriers. I can't read without assistance, can't drive, and may have difficulty when I go to environments that I'm not familiar with, and I can get lost easily. But many other barriers that I experience have nothing to do with my visual impairment.”

After losing most of his eyesight during his matric year, Erwee had to switch from pursuing medicine or engineering, which were his first choices, and ended up studying psychology because he was told that was the only option he had at the time.

“We were only a handful of students that had disabilities, and we somehow all found each other. It was myself, and there was one other person who was completely blind. There was another person who was deaf, and another person who was visually impaired; he was living with albinism. There was no Disability Unit at that time,” he says, adding that back then he had to pay other students to read his textbooks aloud and record them on cassette tapes.

He eventually taught himself how to use the technologies that were available at the time and became so good at it that he could assist students who also needed the help.

“I was forced to teach myself the technological way of doing things. I had a scanner, and I heard about this thing called OCR (Optical Character Recognition). After missing all my semester tests, I managed to scan a textbook and study for all my semester tests at senior level in just 48 hours. I passed with distinction,” he recalls.

During that time the landscape was changing on campus and nationally, and the University’s Disability Unit, as it was called then, was established in 2003. Erwee became a freelancer for the unit and offered his services to more students.

While studying towards his honour’s degree in psychology, he also majored in philosophy, education and criminology. He proceeded to a BCom degree and, during the second year of that degree, he was employed full-time at ADIS, so he paused his academic career.

“Later on, I did another honours degree in augmentative and alternative communication, and I have open invitations at various departments to pursue my masters. I’m hoping to take that up in the near future,” he says.

Erwee is passionate about continuing education, and encourages the students he works with to do the same, while taking advantage of ADIS’s range of services designed to remove barriers to education. 

One of ADIS’s key initiatives is helping students to buy their own assistive devices, funded by a dedicated disability bursary. “We help students buy the tools they need, whether it’s a wheelchair, reading software, or other assistive devices,” he explains.

“While we have many of these technologies available at our offices, those are only available to students while on the campus. When they are able to own their own devices, they are also able to use them after graduating, and continue to function independently in the workplace.”

ADIS also offers practical solutions for students with temporary disabilities, such as those recovering from injuries. “We have electric scooters that students can use to move between classes if they’re unable to walk long distances.”

Erwee stresses that not all disabilities are visible or permanent. “A lot of people, when they talk about disability, only think about those you can see. But many disabilities are invisible.”

This includes conditions like depression and anxiety, which people tend not to think of as a disability because they are largely invisible and they ebb and flow. These can also significantly impact a student’s ability to function in an academic environment. “Culturally, these conditions aren’t always recognised as disabilities, which means many students don’t seek the help they need until much later,” Erwee says.

He adds that due to accidents or health reasons, some people may experience impairments that require intervention. “Many people who have no disability may find themselves having a temporary impairment and may experience barriers requiring intervention.

“Many sports injuries, motor accidents or other unforeseen events such as having a stroke could significantly impact a person’s functioning. You may have broken bones in your hands, arms or feet, leading to you not being able to write or walk unaided. Strokes, for example, can affect your ability to communicate, or could have a profound effect on your mental ability. Most such cases absolutely result in a disability, though it is temporary in nature, with many people eventually making a full recovery and becoming completely independent again.”

To address this, ADIS encourages students to disclose their disabilities, whether visible or invisible. “We require a certificate, not necessarily from a medical doctor, but from a registered professional in the field where the issue is being experienced,” Erwee explains. This could be a psychologist, psychiatrist, or another specialist who can provide the necessary documentation to support the student’s needs.

“There are still students who only discover that they qualify to receive our services in their second or third year,” Erwee says. “We want to change that. Our goal is to make sure every student who needs help knows where to find it.”