“Children with disabilities are creative and innovative – they should get the chance to be at school”
Children with disabilities, Global Youth Ambassadors, Right to education
In the run-up to the Global Disability Summit, we look at a project in Kenya to create awareness of the importance of education.
- On July 24, the United Kingdom government will co-host its first Global Disability Summit with the International Disability Alliance and the government of Kenya. It will bring together more than 700 delegates from governments, donors, private sector organisations, charities and organisations of persons with disabilities.
- In the run-up to the summit, we are publishing articles by Global Youth Ambassadors – a network of more than 900 young activists in over 80 countries.
Access to education, let alone quality education, has always been a challenge and a far-fetched dream for many children living with disabilities.
OneAfricanChild Foundation for Creative Learning organised a project at Compassionate Hand for the Disabled in Nairobi, Kenya.
In our quest to ensure access to education by all, we organised a project at Compassionate Hand for the Disabled in Nairobi where we raised awareness among the children and their caregivers on the importance of education for sustainable development.
Learning in such a situation will call for flexibility and a combination of both formal and informal approaches.
Through arts we were able to give them life skills and promote competencies such as critical thinking and making decisions in a collaborative way, which is essential for them to be independent in their day-to-day activities.
As a result of this project, I have learned a great deal about children and young people living with disability. They are creative and innovative in different ways and, if given the opportunity, they will contribute to society in an immense way.
Secondly, picking from their stories there is a need to create awareness concerning disability. It is often seen as a curse in African society, where children living with disability end up being kept indoors to avoid the stigma that comes along with it.
On the contrary, they should be given the opportunity to be at school and interact with other children freely. We therefore need to intensify our calls on the enrolment of out-of-school children, namely children living with disability.
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