Sat, 10 Feb 2018 12:42:07 +0000
By KETRA KALUNGA
MULUMBO Early Childhood Care and Development (MECCD) foundation of Kabwe has donated nine tailor-made wheelchairs to disabled pupils in a special unit class at a cost of K24 000.
The foundation last year with help from the district education board carried out a research on children with special needs in Makululu and Nakoli townships which revealed that most parents were hiding their children with special needs in their homes.
Handing over the donation, foundation board secretary, Esabel Hamaboyu said children with special needs should be given a right to education because they were human beings like any other person.
Ms Hamaboyu said to the foundation a child, whether disabled or able bodied, is a child because children with special needs also had the ability to grow into responsible citizens.
She said even as the country talks about inclusiveness in education, children with special needs, the disabled in particular should be mobile hence the donation.
“As the organisation through our partners, Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), we bought the tailor-made wheelchairs to give to children with disabilities in the special unit class so that they can be mobile even as we talk of inclusiveness in education,” said Ms Hamaboyu.
She urged parents and guardians that are taking care of the disabled children to rejoice in doing so because their care was not in vain.
Ms Hamaboyu is optimistic that the gesture would compel parents and guardians hiding disabled children in their homes to bring them out so that they too could be helped.
A parent who was on hand to receive the donation, Angela Mukuka, commended MECCD for the gesture, saying it would help them and the children.
And Disacare Wheelchair Centre director, Kenneth Mubuyaeta advised parents and guardians to use the wheelchair for the wellbeing of their disabled children bearing in mind that the wheelchairs were not punishment for the children.
From the research carried out last year, 48 children with special needs were discovered and foundation has enrolled 13 children at its two centres in Mukululu and Nakoli townships while government has assigned two teachers to the centres.
