By Patience Gbeze
Accra, April 27, GNA – Chance for Childhood (CfC), in collaboration with its partners, has embarked on a three-day community outreach within some selected communities in Accra.
The aim is to educate and promote awareness on disabilities and the need for stakeholders to support their learning needs.
The communities visited include Nima, Kotobabi and Maamobi, all suburbs in Accra metropolis.
Mr Richard Opoku, Senior Programmes Manager and Global Safeguarding Lead, CfC, reiterated his call on government to prioritise the implementation of the Inclusive Education Policy by increasing budgetary allocation to it.
He said they recently heard that the Ministry of Education indicated that one of their priorities going forward would be inclusive education.
“We want them to commit to this promise so that the children who are enrolled in school are screened and those who have difficulties are detected at early stages, and are also able to provide the right interventions for them to have effective learning.
“All the communities visited, we noticed that despite increased education, stigmatisation and discrimination against persons with disabilities is still common,” he said.
Mr Opoku said the organisation also aimed to use the outreach programme to improve community members’ understanding about disabilities to reduce stigmatisation and discrimination against such children.
“But more importantly, as an NGO working for children with disabilities, our major goal is that children with disabilities, especially those who struggle to learn are given the needed attention and support.
“If community members understand the signs of children’s learning difficulties, they will be in best position to help their wards to remain in school.”
He said the CfC worked with four districts, namely, Ayawaso Central, Ayawaso North, Ayawaso East, and Accra Metro to train teachers in selected public schools on how to identify children with learning difficulties and to assist them remain in classroom.
“These are the districts we are carrying out our education and we plan to expand our work to other districts and communities so that community members will also become aware of disability issues in order to provide the needed support for such children.”
Mr Opoku said the outreach was very massive and the response so far affirmed their position that education on disability remained very low and called for conscious efforts from partners to increase the awareness.
As part of the engagement, CfC also distributed educational flyers and stickers to the community members.
Mr Emmanuel Kwaku Edem, Special Education Coordinator, Ayawaso North Municipal Education, urged parents with such children to contact the Municipal Education for directions.
Chance for Childhood is a child a centered NGO working to promote inclusive education and safe learning environment for children in vulnerable situations, including children with disabilities and out of school children.
GNA