Children with special needs

Empowering Children with special needs in Uganda through Education

The program aims to address the educational marginalization of children with special needs.

It is working to improve the teaching and learning environment for children with special needs in mainstream primary schools. It also encourages families and communities to appreciate the need to send children with special needs (especially girls) to school. It addresses the educational needs of individual children, including education costs, safety and self-esteem. It advocates for more inclusive policies and practices at the regional and national level.

Activities

Facilitate teacher training focusing on delivering inclusive education
Supporting schools to build ramps and walkways and to improve the accessibility of toilets and washing facilities for children with disabilities
Providing wheelchairs and clutches to children with special needs
Providing free accessible transport to and from schools
Linking children with special needs to education corporate sponsorship and government scholarship schemes to cover school costs
Providing career guidance and counseling to build girls’ self-esteem and life skills
Supporting adolescent girls with menstrual cycle management( sanitary towel, soap and knickers
Supporting parents of special needs children to access rehabilitation services to ensure proper use of prescribed therapies and assistive devices given to their daughters
Raising awareness about education and disability with parents, schools and communities

Inclusive Education

We promote rights-based education for Children with special needs through Inclusive Education. This is done through addressing family, school, policy and child related barriers to participation in education. At family level, we support interventions that help create resilience to enable the child keep in school.

At school we support development of inclusive practices that contribute to a child friendly environment for all children regardless of their backgrounds. At policy level, we work to increase engagement with policy makers to support implementation of education policies that contribute to increase in participation of children with special needs in school.

At child level, we help rehabilitate and empower children to prepare them to be in school while building their esteem to co-exist with other children in the same school.