A non governmental organisation under the aegis of SightSavers has faulted the federal government for its plan of enrolling children with disabilities in specialised schools saying, inclusivity remained the guiding principle for their development in the country.
The country director, Sightsavers, Dr Sunday Isiyaku who made the made this known during a media training tagges ‘Disability Inclusion’ explained that isolating children with disabilities from others through specialised schools will encourage discrimination against them.
He appealed to the federal government to mainstream children with disabilities with those in the normal schools by creating accessibility standard for them as enshrined in the Discrimination Against Persons With Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2019 to nib in the bud all kinds of discriminations.
According to Dr Isiyaku they are out to encourage the enrollment of children with disabilities in normal school to enable them feel a sense of belonging, learning together and even playing with other children, adding that a situation where children with disabilities are only enrolled in specialised schools and after graduation, they will have no specialised jobs to keep them going is discouraging.
“Children with disabilities are not less humans they are humans just like other children and should be allow to mingle and play with their peers as friends, brothers and sisters and as well be given equal opportunities and rights given to other children,” he added.
Dr Isiyaku warned parents who feel ashamed of identifying with their children born with disabilities to desist from such act adding that doing so will rather discourage such children from portraying their God given potentials and capabilities.
According to him, “Activities of Sightsavers are mostly in the Northern part of Nigeria because of needs and where we can have maximum impact and our area of focus includes Health, Education and Social Inclusion.
“We have a pilot project called SMILES which we are using to achieve the Inclusion of Children with disability in normal schools to nib in the bud discrimination, beggarly and lukewarm attitudes against them and we have so far started it in Kaduna and is yielding positive results.
“My joy will have no boundary if government at all levels runs a system whereby every child with disability will have access to education just like other children because our partnership with government is to help them understand what is to be done and supporting them to provide the necessary environment for those in need,” he said.
In a presentation titled, “Disability Inclusion” the project officer, Economic Empowerment, Sightsavers, David Okoroafor explained that disability inclusion is about rights and barriers to those principal objectives of achieving full integration of persons with disabilities into the society.
The Economic empowerment officer also decried a situation where all census carried out in Nigeria failed to capture persons with disabilities for proper planning and documentation when the need arises and called for a change.
“We are also appealing to implementing partners to as a matter of policy include persons with disabilities from the planning stage of their project,” he said.
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