The 12th Edition of the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon went down few weeks ago. The event whose main aim is to raise money to support the eradication of avoidable blindness in Kenya, raised up to 23 million for the ‘Seeing is Believing’ charity last year and I'm sure this year's was more than that. However everything doesn't seem to be right as the organizers have been accused of discriminating disabled persons.  

A Disabled woman has moved to court to challenge the manner in which in last week’s Nairobi Standard Chartered Marathon were awarded. Vivian Owino is accusing the organizers and sponsors of the Marathon of discriminating against persons with disabilities who participated and won in the 42 km race.

Owino says that Standard Chartered and theNational Council for Persons with Disabilities and Ministry of Sports, Culture and Arts discriminated against disabled participants by not awarding
them prizes equal to able-bodied counterparts .

She claims the respondents have in all previous competitions sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank discriminated persons with disabilities who participated using wheel chairs in various events and emerged winners. She is aggrieved that the organizers only rewarded the first three winners for persons with disabilities yet the other category rewarded the first ten finalists. 

Owino has accused respondents of failing to put in place mechanisms to address the challenges faced by persons with disabilities hence violating their rights and fundamental freedoms.

In support of Vivian is Dalmas Otieno, an official at Nairobi amputee football club.

Are disabled athletes being taken for a ride in a race organised to raise funds to help their fellow disabled friends suffering from eye sight problems? The Standard chartered marathon belong to all Kenyans, different category of races are yearly lined up for this big day that is internationally recognised but what baffles me most is how unimportant differently abled people are considered even with the race organisers and sponsors who are mainly represented by Standard chartered Kenya. Able bodied people participate in both 42km and 21km races and so do tricycle and wheelchair racers. What I have never came to understand is why I would race same distance with able bodied athletes where the winner takes home a cool 1.5m shillings while a tricycle racer takes home s mere Ksh 270,000 if I am not wrong. 10km runners are awarded more money than 42km and 21km tricycle and wheelchair racers respectively. The problem is not that they are being unfair to our paralympic athletes, the problem is that we accepted the unfairness which now makes it look like we're being done a favour by being included in the marathon. The race is organised to help those people with eye sight problem through "seeing is believing", why then pretend to care for the disabled( if I may use this term cuz they understand it better) and at the same event discrimination amongst people with disabilities is evident. Abled bodied athletes are awarded from position 1-15 and a disgracing 1-3 for the paralympic athletes. You may keep wondering why the number of tricycle and wheelchair racing participants reduced through the years but I have just told you why.

270,000, 110, 000 and 70,000 isn't bad money to earn in 2hr30 but it is underpayment compared to the money able bodied athletes take home for the same distance. So position 1,2,3 will take 450,000 home between themselves, so what happens to 4,5,6,7,8.......? The race organisers should award more athletes or if bad come to worse at least share the 450,000 across the board to at least position 10 then that way we will be encouraging more of differently abled athletes to participate in this annual event. Let's not think anyone is doing us a favour. You fund your own training, service your own racing equipment, facilitate your own means to the venue and by any bad luck should you get involved in an accident, you will be responsible for your own medical bills and so that is reason enough why paralympic athletes participating in the Nairobi Standard chartered marathon should be equally paid as much as the able bodies athletes - Dalmas Otieno

Do you think Stanchart Marathon are doing the right thing?