The County Government of Nairobi is planning to build 17 special needs centres in collaboration with the Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE) to accommodate special needs children.
Speaking at KISE during The African Summit on Inclusive Early Childhood Care and Education (IECCE) Nairobi County Director of Early Childhood Education (ECDE) Ruth Owuor said the county has set aside capitation fund for the special needs children.
“There will be 17 centres for children with special needs out of these two will be stand-alone and will include everything such as therapy rooms,” she said.
Owuor noted that Governor Johnson Sakaja in his manifesto had promised to put up the centres and the plan is currently in The County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP), the county is coming up with an MOU with KISE for putting up the centres.
The county had also employed ECDE teachers and trained them on how to handle children with special needs.
KISE Director Dr Norman Kiogora said there have been discussions on putting up of parental centre for counselling parents of special needs children.
Kiogora who was the chief guest at the IECCE event said the community should increase the inclusion of special needs children, there should also be training of teachers on how to handle the children.
Dr Kiogora also noted that there is a need to equip centres that receive the children and sharing of public information.
“Encourage them to participate in arts and other activities, everyone should become a voice for the voiceless,” he said.
Maria Omare Director and founder of the Action Foundation and vice chair of Africa Disability Collaboration (ADC) who were sponsors of the summit said the conference was crucial for stakeholders to learn from experts on IECCE and how to strengthen service delivery for special needs children who have been marginalized
The award-winning disability inclusion advocate said they work to reach young children and girls with disabilities that are furthest left behind, they involve their caregivers to help them build better lives for themselves, grow their resilience, and cultivate lasting change. The climax of the summit saw the launch of “Innovations in IECCE in Africa Publication.”
Many special needs parents sink into depression when they get children with special needs due to lack of counselling, most of them lack energy or money for their own therapy.
UNICEF official Takumi Mito said UNICEF will continue to support programs that target ending exclusion, discrimination and violence towards children.
According to UNESCO report approximately one billion people have some form of disability with over four in every five persons living in developing countries. Of these, 93 million are children under the age of 14 living with moderate or severe disability.
The Global Monitoring Report 2010 stated that an estimated 77 million children were excluded from education, a third were children with disabilities.
In Kenya, 13 per cent of Kenyan children live with some form of disability
By Obegi Malack
obegimalack@gmail.com
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