Unpacking Zimbabwean media’s Representations of Vendors Who Are Persons with Disabilities (PWDs): A Critical Social Work Perspective

Media remains an indispensable vehicle through which desired outcomes of socioeconomic transformation and enhanced social functioning of persons with disabilities (hereafter referred to as PWDs) can be realised. Despite long-standing conceptual considerations of the charitable model of understanding poverty, PWDs and inequality with respect to unlocking PWDs’ full entrepreneurial capacities, the role of the media in PWD poverty reduction strategies remains largely unexplored. The aim of this chapter is to explore media’s framing and coverage of vendors who are PWDs and their domains of operation in major Zimbabwean urban centres. Intricate linkages between disability and poverty exist in the Global South, where PWDs experience, inter alia, comparatively lower educational attainment, lower employment and higher unemployment rates, worse living conditions, and higher poverty rates (World Bank 2011). Pertinently, as the chapter illustrates, in the Zimbabwean context, socioeconomic unrest has threatened the fabric of society. Though Zimbabwe’s social protection system once ranked impressively in coverage and other measures, recent crises and structural challenges have eroded its quality and reach. Vending has emerged as a strategy which has now become part of a multipronged effort; PWDs use it as a platform to unlock entrepreneurial capacities, just as other citizens use vending as a platform for survival and a medium for entrepreneurial creativity. Grounded in the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, this chapter explores domains of media coverage of PWD vendors through a lens embedded in social work, human rights and social justice. Finally, the chapter concludes by proposing ways in which the media can be harnessed by PWD grassroots groups to contribute to the success of PWDs’ socioeconomic agenda.