Who will Rescue Them?

…The not-so-good, the bad, and the very bad situation of blind children

By George Mwika Kayange

Published in The Malawi News

Lilongwe, October 15, 2008: Celina Hananiya, 13, who aspires to become a nurse one day, wakes up very early in the morning with her eight other female schoolmates. Together they begin to walk nearly three kilometers from the Malingunde Full Primary School to the Malingunde Dam in Lilongwe to get a bath. They join their 11 male counterparts on the way.

It is not that they enjoy the experience of walking such a long distance, especially at dawn. It’s just that nobody – whoever is responsible – seems to care much about the overwhelming need for providing the school with some water so that these children can begin to take a bath right from their hostels.

Celina -she walks long distances just to get a bath

As if that is not enough, when they return from their morning expedition, they are expected to have breakfast. But, alas, they must be very fortunate, indeed, to find something they can eat before they start classes. They go through such an ordeal almost every day, so it has become a routine they can hardly escape, unless someone comes to their rescue.

Again, that is not the end of the story. These pupils have at least one more characteristic in common. They are all either blind or with low vision. The term used to describe their situation is “visual impairment.”

In spite of their difficult health condition, however, they all seem so determined to ensure that their prison-like lifestyle does not spoil their dream to get at least a basic education, or to become a nurse in the case of Celina. So they can afford to walk long distances just to get a bath without soap; they can keep on wearing the same school uniform repeatedly without washing it with soap; they can start their day without breakfast and finish it with a meal that lacks the necessary nutrition for a simple balanced diet; they have to use dilapidated pit latrines at night without a guide…. as long as they get an education.

And when they finally get into the classroom, they may find themselves spending more of their time chatting instead of learning, as the Perkins Braille Machine may not be working, and it may take not less than four weeks before it is repaired at Montfort Special Needs College in Chiradzulu.

“Montfort is the only place in Malawi where we can have the Braille machine repaired. Sometimes we also run out of special Braille paper which is not found locally except at Montfort,” says Chrissie Msamba, one of the two special needs teachers who graduated from Montfort College this year.

Malingunde Resource Centre for children with special needs is a segment of the Malingunde Full Primary School located in Traditional Authority Masula in Lilongwe Rural. The school, which is non-residential, was established in 1907 under the Church of Central Africa Presbytery (CCAP), but the residential resource centre was set up in 1972. It is the first of its kind in the Nkhoma Synod of the CCAP. The centre, which currently has seven pupils in Standard 1 and 2, can accommodate a maximum of 30 pupils. The whole school has a total of 21 children with visual impairment, who are integrated with the sighted pupils in higher classes, except for the first two lower classes.

The ill-resourced Malingunde Resource Centre

According to Msamba, besides lacking teaching and learning materials, the school cannot cope with the high costs of looking after the children, a development which has, at times, resulted in children living on nsima and vegetables only for the whole week.

“Last year, Government used to allocate only MK 20,000 a month. This year, they give us MK 30,000, but even that amount is pathetic. Otherwise, we have to rely on well-wishers to provide us with beddings, mattresses, sugar, bags of maize, everything. We survive on charity,” she says.

Deputy Headmistress, Alexina Mkukumira, concurs with Msamba that the biggest challenge facing the school is to raise funds and other resources on its own to ensure that the children are able learn in a dignified environment. But she is quick to condemn the negative attitudes of parents towards their own children.

“The [special needs] teachers themselves go into the communities searching and identifying children, instead of the parents having the interest to bring the children to school. And when they arrive here, it is like they are a good riddance, as none of the parents have ever had the interest in the welfare of their children, or bring basic items like soap for their children,” she says.

But one thing that Celina, her school mates, her surrounding communities, and even some of the parents and teachers may not be fully aware of is the fact that what these children are striving for is neither a privilege nor charity. It is a basic right they must enjoy like all other children.

Msamba - cannot cope with the high costs

They need to know that in 2000, more than 1000 participants from 164 countries gathered in Dakar, Senegal, for the World Education Forum where the participants – ranging from teachers to prime ministers, academics to policymakers, non-governmental bodies to the heads of major international organizations – adopted the 2000-word “Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All [EFA].” One of the six EFA goals that were agreed upon is the expansion and improvement of comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.

Yet eight years down the line, these tormenting experiences children with visual impairment are going through at Malingunde School are just some of the depressing testimonies of the gruesome challenges that more than 70000 special needs children are now facing in the country.

Achieving the right to education for persons with disabilities in basic education is a challenging task, but entirely necessary to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of education for all by the target date of 2015, according to the EFA Flagship document entitled, “The Right to Education for Persons with Disabilities: Towards Inclusion”.

The document reads in part: “Not only do governments (and voluntary organizations) face additional per capita programme costs such as special education, but eventual economic costs to society include substantial loss of revenue through incapacities of persons with disabilities to function effectively in occupational settings. These costs can be substantially offset if children with disabilities are schooled in inclusive settings, and if training of general education teachers also includes training for working with children with disabilities.”

Executive Director for the Malawi Union for the Blind (MUB), Ezekiel Kumwenda, says most of the resource centres for the special needs children in the country were actually established by church missionaries long time ago rather than the Government itself. The centres, which are 13 in total, are few compared with the magnitude of problem on the ground. Yet Government fails to adequately resource the already few centres available.

Kumwenda - it is a basic right not charity

For instance, a child who is visually impaired in Chitipa District must travel all the way to the ill-resourced St. Mary’s School in Karonga District; the one in Mulanje must travel to Lurwe in Nsanje; and the one in Mchinji must travel to Malingunde in Lilongwe. What it means essentially is that if Celina’s parents – who currently live at Kaliyeka Township in Lilongwe – were living in another district without such facilities, chances are that she might not be in school today, as she might not have been identified by the special needs teachers, in the first place.

“It is a pity that even in this era issues of disability are still treated as issues of charity at both policy and community levels. But we are not asking for charity. Education is a right for all children, equally,” says Kumwenda, while bemoaning the inadequate number of special needs teachers in the country as well as government’s sluggishness in developing an all-inclusive curriculum.

“Government changes the curriculum now and again. It takes time to put the curriculum in Braille,” he adds.

Chairperson for Parents of Disabled Children Association of Malawi (PODCAM), Mactonnick Phiri, says there is need for more sensitisation not only at policy level but, more significantly, at community level. He says due to the prevailing negative cultural beliefs, parents need to be sensitised not only on the rights of disabled children, but also on how to care for them.

“Parents are still taking children with disabilities to witchdoctors for treatment instead of taking them to hospital, which often worsens the problem particularly in the context of cataract,” says Phiri.

In the case of Malingunde, perhaps a sustained sensitisation on the rights of disabled children would result in parents sending the children with visual impairment to the resource centre without the teachers themselves necessarily having to search for them and bring them there, as revealed by the school’s Deputy Head.

At policy level, Phiri says his association has been advocating for cross-cutting policies with various ministries and stakeholders for people with disabilities.

“For example, the Ministry of Health doesn’t yet have a specific policy on how to deal with matters of disabilities. And when we met the Ministry of Gender, Women and Child Development, they told that they used to refer issues of disabilities to the Health Ministry,” he says.

He says even the new “National Policy on Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities,” launched by the Ministry of Persons with Disabilities in March last year, does not comprehensively cover matters related to special needs children, a claim however challenged by both the Ministry of Persons with Disabilities and the Ministry of Education, respectively.

“Government recognises that a policy environment is conducive to promoting rights and addressing the needs of disabled children in Malawi. Several legislations and policies have highlighted disabled children’s issues,” says Max Nyirenda, Chief Disability Prevention and Awareness Officer at the Ministry of Persons with Disabilities.

On the other hand, Deputy Director for Special Needs Education at the Ministry of Education says among many things, the National Policy on Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities covers issues pertaining to education holistically.

“It talks about schools, bursaries and many issues. Most importantly, Government also has a National Education Sector Plan which is aligned to the MDGS [Malawi Growth and Development Strategy] which has a clear strategic plan for special needs education including Braille books, training of more teachers, among other things,” he says

However, it is clear that Government is unable to provide enough resources to special facilities like the Malingunde Resource Centre to rescue children from walking long distances just for a morning bath. The legislators have failed to allocate enough funds towards the educate sector in its national budget that would rescue the children from spending weeks without enough and proper food. The development partners have not done their part to ensure that sufficient teaching and learning materials are available. Who will then rescue them?

END/…. WORD COUNT/1784

All photos: By George Mwika Kayange ©