"choo"

Finally. An integrated school, that actually (almost) does what it says on the tin!!! Visited Matagaro Primary school this week, which is a primary school that has a special educational needs (SEN) unit attached to it. Not only is it on the school’s site, but some of the children have actually been integrated into the mainstream school and all of the children have break at the same time. Admittedly, this is to much disgust from some of the parents of the ‘normal’ children, because they believe that their children will ‘catch’ whatever difficulties the children with special needs have. They think that if their child interacts with, or even walks on the same ground that a child with epilepsy/learning disabilities/cerebral palsy etc. etc. has walked on, then they will be infected!
I’d love to be able to change the attitudes of these parents, but I know that it won’t happen in the time I am here. I just have to be grateful that the head teacher and the staff at Matagaro believe in giving all children, whatever their need, as equal an opportunity as possible.

Having the head teacher on side is definitely a novelty! The head teacher at Matagaro has a background in teaching children with SEN, it was so refreshing to observe him interact with the children in the unit as he would with any other child.
The other novelty factor of this unit was that every child was introduced to me by their name, not their disability, they were all engaged in a craft activity and the little girl with severe CP was in an adapted chair to support her physical needs, whilst taking part in an activity…
When we discussed the training and support we’d like to offer, the head teacher and class teacher couldn’t have been any more enthusiastic. And not because they thought they would be getting paid to attend our training… I can’t wait for September to come when I can properly get involved with this school and I know that I will be fortunate in working with receptive staff and the loveliest of children.

I visited the Kisumu EARC this week to support them in their assessment day. They’ve not had any SLT input for a long time, so it was felt that before their long term volunteer, Jonathan, arrives it would be beneficial for me to attend on a couple of occasions so that people start to become aware of SLT and what we can offer.
I realise how blessed Vihiga EARC is after spending the day in Kisumu. Vihiga has a recently renovated conference centre in which there’s plenty of space to hold conferences and training days, run our CP clinic, assess children and store all our resources. We’re also looking into soundproofing a room (with egg boxes!) in order to be able to offer proper hearing tests. Kisumu EARC is on the site of Joylands Special School, it has an office, a store room and a small room in which assessments are carried out. There are limited toys, and often not all of them are offered to the children that visit because they are likely to be stolen. However, the staff team are wonderful! Again, they couldn’t be any more welcoming to me, as were the parents of the children I assessed.

What frustrates me the most here (and there are a lot of things that annoy me…) is that because this is an underdeveloped country and so many of the children I see and assess are from unbelievably poor backgrounds, there is no opportunity for them to receive support like the children I have worked with back in England have. For example, in Vihiga I assessed the most beautiful 6 year old girl called Latifa She has cerebral palsy, her birth mother has abandoned her, so her step mother is her primary caregiver. Her comprehension is age appropriate, poor gross motor skills and has to be carried everywhere (it’s too expensive to buy wheelchairs here..) and very limited speech. However, because she was born in the slum, there is no way her family will ever be able to access any kind of vaguely high tech communication aids. Even low tech, especially if they involve a printer…  At home, there would be options for a little girl like Latifa. She did however, suck through a straw for the first time during our session and attempted to say Rachael - I let her off with just calling me “choo“!!! 

Tomorrow (Friday 15th July) we have an event at the EARC. Safaricom (the main telephone/internet provider out here) and the Red Cross have teamed together to provide school uniforms for hundreds of children across the district! I can’t wait to see their faces as they receive uniforms that fit and haven’t got half of them missing..