I went to Danhiko Project’s annual Paralympic Games for the first time. In attendance was the First Lady Grace Mugabe, the Project’s patron, several important looking Zimbabwean government officials, captains of industry etc. 81 clubs from all over the country attended, with athletes participating in a diverse number of sports including swimming, wheelchair basket ball, tennis, and a new sport to me, goal ball.

I have to admit to being impressed by what I saw. The cliché about disabled athletes being brave, spirited and determined is exactly that because it’s true. These are not people to be pitied, or looked down upon. Neither are they helpless. But in society that discriminates based on difference, that is what often happens.

There were a lot of journalists covering the story that day, as evidenced by the extensive coverage to be found in the Herald and on ZBC. It is unfortunate though, that the games, the participants and even the Danhiko Project were just a backdrop to a story framed as ‘what the First Lady did on Saturday’. For the majority of the time the cameras were on the First Lady and Government officials.

On the news in the evening what was shown was the First Lady giving a speech about how much she managed to raise for the games (any mention of corporate sponsorship was edited out, yet free advertising is what induces companies to sponsor events in the first place!), and footage of her and several government officials making merry on the dance floor.

What’s even worse is that for television the reporter who filed the story wasn’t even there. ZBC sent a cameraman and googled their way through a five-minute story.

To her credit, the First Lady did try to maintain the focus on the reason the event was held in the first place, for the disabled.

This entry was posted on October 8th, 2010 at 2:33 pm by Upenyu Makoni-Muchemwa and is filed under Media, Reflections, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.