How partnership with VSO is helping disabled children back into school
Image courtesy of Wheelchair Foundation
A DFID-funded project has helped around 1,900 disabled children in Kenya to attend primary school – and influenced government policy on disabled children and people.
Under the VSO-run Special Needs Education Support Project (SNESP), teachers in 250 schools across the country received support and extra resources to enable them to include and teach special needs children.
Support was also given to Education Assessment and Resource Centres, which assess and refer disabled children to local schools, to help them ensure that schools are able to provide appropriate, good quality education for disabled children.
Problems of access for children who can’t walk
The project was a vital step forward in ensuring that the rights of disabled
children to an education are safeguarded. Too often the problems they face are
ignored.
VSO volunteer Shikuku Obosi now works in India, but grew up in Kenya. He says:
“In both Kenya and India, access to education is a real challenge where schools are a quite a distance and it’s hard to get there if you can’t walk. That was also my problem - one leg paralysed due to polio and the school 5 kilometres away.
From the time I was 8 years old, I actually used to stay at the school to save my family the trouble of getting me to school every day.”
The SNESP project not only led to an increase in the number of disabled children able to attend primary school – it also led to a sea change in many teachers’ attitudes, who became less fearful and more confident in working with disabled children, with many adopting a supportive child-centred approach.
The project also had a major impact at community level. Partner organisations, parents' groups and disabled children report greater visibility and acceptance of disabled children within communities, and improved access to education and other support services.
Influencing the decision-makers
Image courtesy of VSO
Kenya’s Ministry of Education was so impressed by what the project has achieved that it has adopted its inclusive approach to education as the template for national policy – and accepted the need to give more priority to education for disabled children.
SNESP also contributed to official recognition of the rights of disabled people. Thanks to this work – and other lobbying and campaigning by VSO and its partner organisations – the new constitution now recognises the rights of disabled people.
A Disability Act, which guarantees the rights of disabled persons, has since been passed and there is also a governmental National Plan of Action for disabled people.
Now in its next phase, SNESP is working to increase access to appropriate education for children with disabilities, and increase community and government support for the needs and rights of children and people with disabilities. It is also supporting parents' groups to set up income-generating activities.
VSO
news from Kenya- VSO's
strategic plan for disability
- DFID
and Disability Report (ReliefWeb, December 2004)
Key facts
- SNESP is now working to increase access to appropriate education for children with disabilities, and increase community and government support for the needs and rights of children and people with disabilities
- In its current phase (2004 -2008), the project has expanded to cover 20 districts (from ten in initial phase)
- Between 2000-03 the number of disabled children enrolling in Kenyan primary schools increased from 900 each year to 1,300-1,400 a year.
- DFID provided £48,000 in funds to the initial phase of SNESP from the Disability
Knowledge and Research (KaR) fund
- Many of the core costs for VSO Kenya related to programme development and dissemination were met from the DFID's Programme Partnership Agreement with VSO
