Catering to special needs children around Mt Elgon

Teacher Esther Muchoma taking her special class through the ropes during a lesson at Chemwesus Primary in Mt. Elgon. PHOTO: CHRISPEN SECHERE/STANDARD

BUNGOMA: On the south eastern slopes of Mt Elgon are two schools that have embraced children with special needs.

St Susan’s RC Chemses and Chemwesus primary schools stepped in to help bear the burden carried by parents whose children have various physical and mental disabilities.

These are children with Down’s syndrome, autism, mental handicaps, hearing and visual impairment, spina bifida (birth defect in which a baby’s spinal cord fails to develop properly) and motor function failure.

A few days ago, education stakeholders in the region said action needs to be taken against parents who keep their disabled children from school.

Sub-County Education Quality Assurance and Standards Officer Musungu Murakwa, said such parents need to rid themselves of the belief that children with disabilities do not need education.

While various officials calling for action to be taken to reverse this trend, Principal Philip Barikacho of St Susan’s RC Chemses Primary School, has already taken the lead.

This January, the teacher made provision for a special-needs class at the school.

“My teachers went to homes looking for children with special needs, convincing parents to allow them attend school. Their integration with regular children has been successful and they have fully embraced learning.

We have however, not received any funds from the Government but despite this, we continue to offer the service including a feeding programme which helps to keep them in school,” he said.

The class has children of diverse ages living with various disabilities. There is five-year-old Victor Ndiwa who has spina bifida and a loose bladder, and two three-year-old sisters with paraplegia and weak motor function.

A 12-year-old with hyperactivity, a 19-year-old with attention deficiency disorder, four 17-year-olds with low vision, mental handicap, hearing and speech impairment, two 18-year-olds with multiple challenges of epilepsy and physical handicap and a 20-year-old who is mentally handicapped and hearing impaired.

“We have different issues coming up every day as we work with these children. Their parents have however, been very supportive and this has made our work easier,” said Judith Kones, one of the three special-education teachers at the school.

Specialised learning materials, which are essential in working with such children, are not available at the school.

“We improvise learning materials and add value to the curriculum by offering skills such as goat keeping and beekeeping.

We also teach integrated lessons with regular children as a means to build the children’s social skills,” she says.

The teachers’ efforts have been noted by Kapsokwony Deputy District Education Officer Murakwa Musungu, who says stigma towards such children was high but has since subsided with the introduction of the classes.

“We had cases where parents could not accept their children’s disability, but we thank the teachers who have supported them.

There is now hope for these children and we now need a special needs secondary school so that our children do not have to travel very far to learn,” he said.

A few kilometres away is Chemwesus Primary School, which was registered to cater to special-needs children in 2014.

Today, the school has 17 children who are sadly forced to learn under a tree because funds were not availed for construction of an extra class to accommodate this lot.

Another challenge is the age disparity which ranges from five to 16-years-old.

While having an adolescent and an early childhood learner in the same class is not an ideal model, Musungu says it is better this way than to have the children locked up at home as has been the case.

The class was also dealt a great blow when one of its founding teachers, Celestine Mung’ou, died in a tragic accident. She has however, since been replaced by Esther Mochomu, who was seconded by the district education office.

Despite all the challenges thus far encountered, Principal Cleophas Kirui is determined that the class must go on.

He says efforts to have parents who would normally lock up their special-needs children bring them to class, will go on until all special-needs children in the region feel that they are wanted.

“As long as this mountain surrounds this place, all children will enjoy the equal right to education and opportunity,” he said.