Confronting stigma head-on, Capetonians Shona and Vic have been transforming lives

A child sitting in a Madiba2Go posture buggy overlooking the hills in Eswatini during an outreach clinic held by the ShonaquipSE seating team. Photo: Shona McDonald

By Chris Bateman

17 Sep 2024

Shona McDonald and Vic McKinney want society’s ‘invisible’ people to be seen.

For two Capetonians, using their passion to take on major personal challenges has transformed both their lives – and potentially the lives of hundreds of thousands of others – and made what seems miraculous the new norm.

The genesis of Shona McDonald’s Shonaquip Social Enterprise, which designs and makes international award-winning assistive devices, was the birth of her second daughter, Shelly, who has cerebral palsy. McDonald resisted professional advice to place Shelly, now 42, in a home. Instead, she turned her attention to making their lives as functional as possible.

She built what she claims was the first paediatric electric wheelchair in Africa in her garage, which meant that, at 18 months old, her daughter could move herself around independently, indoors and outdoors.

“In the 1980s, even manual paediatric wheelchairs were unavailable in Africa and certainly not electric-powered ones, let alone any for children with cerebral palsy,” McDonald says. “I moved on to building equipment that could be used in rugged rural areas, not just indoors and outdoors or on flat areas.”

Children play together at the Bizweni Centre for Children with Disabilities in Somerset West. At the back is Akhanani and in front are Jaydrian, Hope and Noah. (Photo: Yeah Yeah Photography / Courtesy of Helena Krige)

Today, ShonaquipSE offers a popular array of buggies and wheelchairs that can be adapted to accommodate any kind of disability and are in use globally. They are distributed to seven African countries, Georgia in Eastern Europe and, most recently, the UK. In South Africa, McDonald supplies the government through the departments of Health and Basic Education via tender, and works with local medical aids.

“The idea is to get children with disabilities the assistive devices they need so they can access early childhood development, get a decent education and find jobs,” she says.

Shona McDonald at work. Photo: Supplied

McDonald is an adviser to the World Health Organization. She also sits on the boards of the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals and ATscale, the Global Partnership for Assistive Technology.

For Vic McKinney, the catalyst to his transformation was a life-shattering road accident in 1987 involving him and his dad, a former Irish national footballer who was also named Vic. Vic Senior was killed and Vic Junior was rendered quadriplegic.

McDonald and McKinney became firm friends after she first helped him to design his wheelchair 34 years ago. McKinney moved on from studying fine art to obtain a PhD in disability studies at the University of Cape Town and is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Division of Disability and Rehabilitation Studies at Stellenbosch University.

He also teaches and often contributes to disability awareness presentations for McDonald’s nonprofit organisation, which conducts outreach service missions to rural, impoverished communities, where people with disabilities have struggled for years, unaware of what assistance is possible in the public healthcare sector.

Brothers Yolo and Inganathi Somdaka (in wheelchair) at one of the many Clinton Health Initiative and Lego Foundation early child development play centres equipped by Shonaquip. (Photo: Supplied)

Transforming lives

Together, McKinney and McDonald are striving to transform the lives of people with disabilities, and they are confronting prejudice and stigma head-on.

McKinney’s initial battle with depression and feeling overwhelmed (an only son, he idolised his father and was himself a talented footballer) has ended in triumph, with him achieving what many young men dream of and take for granted – falling in love, getting married and raising a family. McKinney and his wife Emma (who has a hearing impairment and a PhD in business administration focusing on the employment of people with disabilities) have two sons, James (13) and Benjamin (9).

McKinney admits to having bought into the “medical model of disability”, which views the person with disability as a helpless figure in need of constant care and charity, when he first experienced being unable to get up at 2am and paint when the muse was upon him. “I would implode instead of creatively explode,” he said.

(Photo: Supplied)

His “biggest hang-up” for a long time was that anything he did was “never going to be as good as it could have been”.

“You’ve no idea what paralysis is about and you’re experiencing in yourself an inability to do what you want, so you start buying into the ‘I am disabled’ school of thinking. That’s what I did.

“It’s pretty easy to say, ag well, stuff it! But I get amazing support from my family.”

What helped, although he has mixed feelings about “deserving it”, was a settlement payout resulting from his accident. This gave him the financial means for home and support staff to bolster his recovery and develop self-sufficiency over the years.

“I feel I represent what is possible for someone with a disability when given the right support.

“But I’m also aware that I’ve been extremely privileged and fortunate to have the opportunities I’ve had – opportunities that all people with disabilities in South Africa have a right to but are being denied for several reasons.”

This author first met McKinney in July 2008, when he was a bachelor living in Marina da Gama with a full-time male nurse carer, revelling in his mouth painting.

Vic, James, Emma and Benjamin McKinney on Milnerton Lagoon Beach. (Photo: Anne Coop)

He believes the lack of visibility of people with disabilities in society (despite 14% of South Africans being disabled in some way) and the failure to integrate them into the mainstream are to blame for widespread prejudice and ignorance.

McKinney also highlights the urgent need for disability-inclusive education and training for students.

McDonald says her proudest achievement these days is ShonaquipSE’s outreach programme in which thousands of “network parents”, who receive training by WhatsApp, help to identify barriers in service delivery and contact other families with children with disabilities who need information.

A child sitting in a Madiba2Go posture buggy overlooking the hills in Eswatini during an outreach clinic held by the ShonaquipSE seating team. (Photo: Shona McDonald)

These parents link up the families in remote communities who would most benefit from information, assessments, equipment and support services.

The Cape Town duo are showing that miracles can result when determination and a pinch of empathy are added to ubuntu. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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Transforming lives