Kendy’s project

One of the employees of Plan in Marimanti, Kendy, whom I went to visit schools with is trained as a special needs teacher. In the district of Tharaka she has found 600 children that needs support, she knows about 300 more. She is sure that this year she will hit the 1000 mark. In Tharaka Plan has increased the opportunities for children with special needs to access quality education. But still almost all of these children does not get an adequate education because the system is not made to accommodate them, they need special things to get through school like braille machines, magnifying glasses, glasses in general and simply, the support of a special needs teacher. In the United States special needs is a term used in clinical diagnostic and functional development to describe individuals who require assistance for disabilities that can be medical, mental or psychological. Types of special needs vary in severity. People with autisms, blindness, dyslexia, Down syndrome, ADHD or cystic fibrosis may be considered to have special needs for example. However special needs can also include cleft lips and or palates, port wine birth marks or missing limbs. This means that the support that the children needs can vary greatly from one child to the next.

Where I was staying in Tanzania a girl named Aika was staying as well. Aika’s mother had died long before giving birth to her little brother and as she was the breadwinner in the family, her father couldn’t take care of her and her brother and sister. The family I stayed with took her little brother in first almost right after he was born on the urging of a volunteer midwife who had been present at his birth, then a few years later when they learned how bad a condition his sisters were in, they took them in too. In a few years she will finish her primary education. I have heard the grandparents of the family, the heads of the family, talking about whether they should send her to high school or not. The thing about Aika is that she is slow to learn and easily forgets things. As she doesn’t get any special help and this is reflected in her grades. Another of the reasons that the grandparents were thinking of not sending her to high school is that it is expensive and why should they send her to school if she doesn’t learn?

According to article 23 in the Convention of the Rights of the Child: “a mentally or physically disabled child should enjoy a full and decent live, in conditions which ensures dignity, promote self-reliance and facilitate the child’s active participation in the community. 2. States Parties recognize the right of the disabled child to special care (…) to ensure that the disabled child has effective access to and receives education, training, health care (…)”. Aika and all the other children that Kendy has found has the right to an education and to special care. Special care that they do not receive as it is, but they should and maybe someday they will.