Paraplegic meets life's challenges
JAKARTA (JP): The ultimate challenge for a handicapped person is showing that they are worth their weight in gold, just as 29- year-old Osmiyati has done.
A paraplegic, Osmiyati uses a wheelchair while working as a telephone operator at the office of the giant Arco oil company or while running a small restaurant, which she jointly owns with her friends.
Osmiyati, who is affectionately known to her friends as Miya, has suffered from paraplegia for the past nine years, after a tragic accident in the hilly West Java town of Sukabumi, some 120 kilometers south of here.
To Miya, Sept. 24, 1989, is an unforgettable day. She and 50 other friends were on their way home from a camping trip, when the truck they were riding on skidded and crashed into a cliff, killing four of her friends and injuring several others, including herself.
Recovering from her injury, Miya was confronted with the bitter fact that would be all an attractive, energetic girl could bear: The lower part of her body was paralyzed. In her despair, she quit her studies at the ASMI secretarial academy and began to avoid her friends.
Miya's life underwent great changes -- from enjoying her outdoor youthful life to following therapy sessions, from lively mountain climbing to sitting bored in her wheelchair. But her parents had always encouraged her to accept the reality of life and to never give up hope.
It took her parents seven long years before they finally succeeded in restoring Miya's self-confidence.
"I then realized that I could not always depend on my parents for the rest of my life," she told The Jakarta Post.
"I will be a burden to them and I won't have a future if I rely too much on them," Miya said confidently.
She asked her parents's permission to let her stay at the Jakarta Wisma Cheshire, an infirmary for paraplegics funded by the London-based Leonard Cheshire Foundation, on Jl. Wijaya Kusumah, South Jakarta.
At the Wisma, Miya and 30 other paraplegics learn how to take care of themselves.
More than once she fell from her wheelchair while taking a bath and had to grapple with whatever she could reach before getting back on the chair. At first, it was quite an effort but now she can easily take a bath herself.
She has been staying at the Wisma for 18 months now and is planning to leave soon. Not only has she recovered her confidence, but she has also had a great deal of training on how to move around freely in the wheelchair.
She spends her leisure time visiting shopping malls and theaters. She does not hesitate to ask help from passersby whenever she needs it.
She complains, however, that the government has not provided enough public facilities for physically handicapped people.
She also plans to finish her secretarial studies.
One of her burning desires is to become a legislator so that she could fight for the interests of physically handicapped people in Indonesia.
She said at the end of the interview: "If you have relatives or friends who suffer from paraplegia, don't hesitate to tell them to visit the Wisma so that we can help them to be more self- reliant." (04)