Teach a youth the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6
At the launch of the book A Girl Called Gaborone, a major spark has been ignited on the topic of children living with disabilities and the need for a national and local conversation.
The book launch was sponsored by a Canadian-based Malawian philanthropist, hosted by Dr. Ken Lipenga, and modulated by Regina Mzithembi Mbekeani. It was graced by the Minister of Information Honorable Gospel Kazako, participants from Malawi, Germany, Canada, and the US.
As participants were given a brief synopsis of the book, contributions in the two-hour Zoom conference centered on the state of disability in Malawi. Both physical emotional, and behavioral disorders.
Malawians being akin to laying good foundations for children as a basis for good progression in education, participants bemoaned the challenges encountered all around in the education system.
A caution was sounded that amid the country’s concern in laying good foundations, Malawians must come to grips with two areas of concern.
The first is that the education system in the country needs to take account of the scholars with disabilities ranging from learning, intellectual, autism, speech or language impairment, emotional disturbance, hearing impairment, orthopedic impairment.
Malawi is not fortunate to have been spared from having this population of scholars in its student body and in every school.
The second consideration that must be bone in mind is that children living with these disabilities grow up into adults that later age into senior citizens.
The alert button was hit that when societies neglect to train all their school-going populations, those societies are developing individuals that will be illiterate, unskilled, and likely find it difficult to sustain a wage or an income-earning livelihood.
Thus, from children to adults and later seniors, this cadre of the population plunges into deeper pockets of poverty and impoverishment that is exacerbated by their disability.
In the national conversations which should call for the participation of several ministries, it will be important to collaborate heavily with the families of students with disabilities. It will also be vital to outline the physical and invisible disabilities.
Research has shown that the families of children with disabilities experience many different ranges of emotions. These ranges of emotions vary and can stretch from denial on one end of the pendulum to joy and strength on the other end.
In between would be anxiety, guilt, anger, grief, fear, depression, despair. These could be experienced at once or in succession or building up as time passes.
The additional roles that a parent of a child with a disability must undertake are that of a care manager for their child, an advocate, and a medical and health insurance expert.
One of the researches describe six categories of parent involvement as follows:
Parenting. This is where parents of a child with a disability create an environment suitable for their child. For the educator, it may mean either visiting the parent in their home or getting the parent to attend school activities. Many parents were seen physically taking their children, especially those with a physical disability to school.
Communicating. Communication is a vital means of involving the parent of a child with a disability. Educators need to create a two-way platform, one that invites the parent into the involvement system. Many times, because of the large number of schools, this may prove difficult. But keep the channels opened.
Volunteering. Parents of a child with a disability should be offered opportunities for them to volunteer in school activities. This creates the ownership spirit on the side of the parents.
Raising resources. Families can be involved in establishing resources in the school. When my Mom saw that one of her grand-nephew came home repeatedly with dust-stained clothes, she learned that he sits on the floor. She went to the market and bought him six mats.
School decision-making. Parents can be encouraged to take part in decision-making activities in the school by joining and including them in school.
Collaborating with the community. The parents can be encouraged to join community activities, or a club dealing with disabilities or host a community day service activity such as cleaning up a playground or painting signboards in the schoolyard.
From the family focus, the dialogue could move to contributions and or participation from the community.
The model could then move up to the national level, where policy guidelines and laws are enacted. Taking place concurrently would be the school-based assessment of its student populations.
The school administrators would of course need to be cognizant of the visible (physical) and the invisible (mental disorders listed above) disabilities of the student population.
Continuing to ignore the special needs of the wide range of persons living with disabilities and disorders, is akin to throwing part of your dinner dish out the window.
