Help Kenyan children with disabilities into school

Thank you for supporting the Disability Community Centre (DCC) in Maua, Kenya.

2021 was another busy and productive year for the DCC culminating in a very special celebration in December...

The DCC marked the International Day of Persons with Disability on the 3^rd of December 2021 with pomp and colour! The day was graced by His Excellency the Governor of Meru County among other dignitaries. His attendance was important in addressing the plight of persons with disability in Meru County including children and the need to access quality education.

Thanks to supporters, we were able to ensure that all safety precautions (masks, sanitizer etc.) were in place with respect to preventing the spread of Covid-19. 

During the day, an initiative to provide special identity cards was launched. These are to be issued to 8,000 persons with disabilities living in the region. This is a project that the Disability Community Centre has been working on over the past year - to register persons with disabilities in order to identify their needs and compel the government to allocate resources for these needs.

We look forward to keeping you updated throughout the year with news about this and other programmes run by the DCC.

HATW works in partnership with the Disability Community Centre (DCC), Kenya, a community project which supports children and families with disabilities, whilst increasing disability awareness. As well as this, the DCC supports initiatives in Athi and Irindiro and other local schools which provide residential education for children with impairments and disabilities. They do incredible work and make a significant difference to some of the most vulnerable children and families in the region.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about new challenges, particularly exacerbating the need for access to efficient technology. We want to support the DCC by raising £1,200 to purchase 3 laptops. Although it was the pandemic that sparked the necessity for efficient online access, providing new laptops to the DCC office also opens the door to new forward thinking approaches to training and supportive measures.

We are excited to be partnering with GlobalGiving to raise funds to support the incredible work of the DCC staff through the provision of three laptops.

GlobalGiving's Little by Little campaign runs all this week (13th - 17th September). All donations up to $50 (£36) will be matched at 50%. If you can, please support the DCC appeal and donate this week to make your money go further!

Links:

• Laptops appeal

The third wave of Covid-19 hit the country from mid-March 2021 leading the government to impose a travel ban to some counties and a night curfew. The school Easter holiday being scheduled for 4 weeks in April, it seemed that schools would not resume for the next term. Fortunately, the restrictions were reduced and school resumed in May 2021. 

Strict measures of social distancing and good hygiene and sanitation remain enforced in the schools with a restricted visitation  policy. These measures are in an effort to contain the spread and ensure children are safe in the schools.

The DCC has embarked on a project to ensure Athi special school has adequate clean water through sinking a borehole. The intention is to complete the project within 3 months so that the challenges of looking for water shall be in the past.

The photos in this report show some of the work carried out over the past 3 months including therapy sessions at home. 

The situation of Coronavirus in the country has improved and all education institutions have resumed. Our two targeted schools, Athi special School and Irindiro are in session. The challenge is ensuring the children with disabilities maintain social distance and hygiene such as wearing of masks. In order to ensure the learners are protected the schools have resorted to restricting visitation in the schools.

Irindiro special school is in need of extra classrooms as they only have 2 classrooms catering to 110 learners. To avoid overcrowding the children are learning outside under the trees.

In view of the last population census, which revealed that Meru County is leading with the number of persons with disability with over 60,000 persons with disabilities, the DCC embarked on registering persons with disability especially women for the past 2 months in order to seek support from the government. The target is to register 6,000 women with disabilities and so far we have registered 8,000 persons with disabilities with 5,300 being women. After the exercise they will be trained on how to use their new registered status to advocate for support from the government.

DCC staff continue to visit children in the programme at their homes and provide Covid protective equipment and food stuffs to their families. The situation with Coronavirus in Kenya is now improving and the government is starting to lift restrictions.

We have resumed mobile clinics in 4 centres where we provide services to those who are not able to reach the main centre in Maua. Here we have witnessed very vulnerable children who are in dire need of help. However, we are unable to provide more families with food as we don’t have sufficient funds and those, we are already providing for are still dependent on us.

The government announced partial reopening of schools starting on the 12th October 2020 but the fate of Special schools where the children we support normally attend is still unknown.

We have continued to provide support in the form of forums where health officials and parents get to interact, and parents can ask pertinent questions on disability and about their children.

Thank you for supporting this project.