JANEROSE ADOLF MWASHAMBWA, 50 years, a
teacher of children with disabilities and a mother of a child with an
intelectual disability
My name is teacher Janerose Adolf
Mwashambwa, my age is 50 years old. In 1994 I started to teach as a volunteer
and in 1997 I joined Patandi College for studying special education. My first-
born child is disabled and this is what
influenced me to join this college so that I can be able to assist my child.
My child's name is Irene H. Mbaga. She
was born without any disability but at the age of five years she got a high
fever and fell unconscious for 3 days and when she got up she could not do
anything. Before this event she was in nursery school and she was able to write
numbers 1-10 and vowels but after she recovered from her disease she could not
do anything – not count nor write.
After my studies I went back to the medical
doctor and now believe that there is nothing that can be done to improve her
disability. Before studying special education I used to send my daughter to different
religious congresses hoping that she will be healed and become normal again.
The biggest challenge for parents is to accept that their child is disabled.
You find that some of the parents shift their children from one sick station to
another hoping she or he might be cured and become normal. They don’t know that
disabled children learn slowly and some may recover and others may not. Parents
have little understanding about disability and how to take care of a disabled child so they need to be educated.
Only few intelectually disabled
children know their expectations. When you ask them what is their ambition they
will tell you I want to marry or say anything that they heard people talking
about. The children’s expectations are created by both parents and teachers.
Once we discover the talents and abilities of a child we train its parents on
how they can continue to develop them so that the child might be able to
contribute to the community.
I am not familiar with the law and
rights of people with disabilites but what I know is the policy which indicates
that all children, regardless of their disability or color, should go to school
when they reach seven years old. Unfortunately, this policy is only implemented
in urban areas and not in rural areas. I did not do research about this but
this is what is happening because many schools for children with disabilities
are located in urban areas.
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