By Fredrick Odiero
Form three students at Joyland Special School penned a letter during the visit by President Ruto’s daughter, Charlene Chelagat to their learning institution yesterday.
The item read by Ms. Cynthia Awuor, a form three student, moved Chelagat so much that she promised to donate a bus to the institution.
Here goes the letter;
As our parting shot, this is a story to illustrate more reasons why our institution will sincerely benefit from the acquisition of a bus.
The school has many Special Needs Education (SNE) learners who use wheelchairs. There was this case of one student whose deformity couldn’t allow him to sit but kneel on the wheelchair.
He had scoliosis (hunchback) and lordosis all at the same time. His hands were very weak thus his wheelchair was pushed by Good Samaritans.
After the closure of the school, the housefather could take him to the bus terminus for him to pick up vehicles to his home, the routine was that the housefather had to take several trips to the bus terminus with the boy until when they would get a willing PSV driver who could accept the boy on board with his tailor-made wheelchair that was locally made to suit the disability. This marathon of the housefather pained us to the marrow.
We wish we had our own means of transport. This kind of negative reception on public transport discourages some learners not to come to school due to what they go through in such cases. It’s a routine for parents/guardians to bring and pick up the learners to and from school for the rest of the academic year(s).
With the school bus, we would pick up and drop such SNE learners at their doorsteps.
Happy to get a positive response from you.
Thank you.
