Our work with children and their families is centered on providing the mimimum assistance because of limited resources i.e. disposibles - diapers, wipes, non perishable foods, assessments to ensure those who can attend mainstream education ae allowed to do so and those who can attend specialized educationl centers are given an opportunity as well.
What special needs children really need is to ensure every child/young/person with special needs have is independence and is included and to help them develop life skills, such as -
Children with special needs required the same things others take for granted such as
Life would have been extremely difficult, in fact could have resulted in parents of special needs children having them in very unsanitory and unhealth situation without the help we have received so from our donors and supporters.
Your continued assistance is critical to help us achieve our goals for special needs children i.e -
Your help is imperative.
Two years ago the government of Saint Lucia terminated the health assessment for special needs children, this assessment is necessary to make a critical evaluation of children who have special need to understand if they should be in mainstream educational institutions, we advocated for the reinstatement of the program however the Govt has never reinstated the specialists, instead they appointed a pediatrician who works at a public health institution without the necessary technical expertise and a language barrier and its been downhill from there for parents of special needs children who are unemployed or are underemployed because they need to provide care and protection to their special needs children.
Our appeal for assistance for vulnerable, poor and marginalized families with special needs children continues, we provide disposables and food items however the funding has not been able to provide the level of support required i.e. disposible, non perishables and medical assessment for all who require, the level of support has been to limited number of persons.
We get numerous call for assistance on a daily basis, we cannot do it alone and we continue to request assistance from donors so we may assist those who cannot assist themselves in this times.
While we have not raised any funding via our global giving platform for special needs children we continue to support with inkind donations from people who support our organisation from the USA.
We supply disposible pampers, wipes and non perishable items to a limited number of children and pay for assessment fees for those who their parents are not able and they need to attend school.
Many special needs children and their families because of their economic status i.e. marginalized and vulnerable are without the required support from state agencies because of budget cuts, they are discriminated on within the public education system and parents spend lots of time battling to security the right to meet their children's needs outside of the home.
The system for supporting children and young people with special needs is verging on crisis. Against a backdrop of increasing cuts to agency budgets, parents are having to deal with poor decision making on the part of government employees which frequently stems from a lack of understanding that all children regardless of their disabilities are citizens who deserve the same rights as everyone else
Special needs children are citizens too!
Our fundraising has not been as successful as we had hoped, however we continue to provide whatever assistance we can to select families of special needs children, we are being called upon to assist with many cases for medical assessments and to provide non perishable food items and other disposibles however due to financial constraints we can only help those who are extremely vulnerable.
We continue to hope that our request for assistance and cry for help for and on behalf of special needs childre and victims and survivors of gender based violence will be heard and both private individuals and corporate entities and they will voluntarily come forward to assist.
We continue to advocate for and behalf of the vulnerable, marginalized, poor, victimized and those who do not have the strength or courage to come forward and speak for themselves, we continue to advocate for the amendment of specific pieces of legislation to ensure all women and children are equally recognized in their own right and we continue to advocate for improved social services so victims of violence can feel safe while disclosing violence and most importantly we continue to hope that children in state rehabilitation institutions and private foster care are protected, cared for and rehabilitated so they may be reintegrated into society as productive individuals.
We welcome your donation to support families of special needs children!
This project provided support to children and families of special needs children from November 2017, meanwhile, we continue to advocate for better services and support for families of special needs children while raising funds to provide health assessments, disposable diapers, wipes, nonperishables, etc.
We are concerned that rather than supporting families with developmental services the Government of Saint Lucia have chosen a system that engages parents in a constant struggle to obtain and maintain vital services for their special needs children; to date the Government has defunded the Community Health Assessor for Special Needs Children, therefore parents who are poor or does not have the necessary financial means have difficulty getting their children assessed to be eligible to attend school.
Also, the EDUCATION QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROJECT (EQuIP) funded by the Caribbean Development bank will conduct a study to “enhance special needs education by assessing what institutional and infrastructural improvements are needed to provide quality education and equitable access to children with special educational needs” but the government has removed the infrastructural part of the project to construct a modern physical space for the rehabilitation and education of special needs children.
Your generosity has taken us thus far and we continue to request your support, advocacy and encouragement to assist special needs families during these challenging times.
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