Special Needs Class--Anissa's assignment at New Hope

Helping out at the Special Needs class was a total blast!  Those kids are such a joy!  There are 6 of them, plus one baby who spends half her time at Baby House and half her time at Special Needs.  The children receive physical therapy every day and work on basic life skills like greetings and self-care as well as educational things like colors, shapes, self-identification, etc.  Lots of singing and games…they absolutely love the parachute and musical instruments.  There is a British staff women who runs the program and a Ugandan man who is the head teacher….Uncle Eric (far right, had polio as a small child) is a phenomenal man who knows 7 languages!!! It was such a privelage to serve with him! 

Brian (with spina bifida) had a smile that lit up the whole room and captivated my heart!  Joey ran over to the Special Needs class during one of his breaks at the Primary School, just to see the smile I couldn't stop talking about!



Kakande (older special needs student) pushing Brian

Ivan was my special boy...he would always stare at me across the room and smile when our eyes met.  He couldn't do much to move his body, so he would play games with me with his eyes.  He truly melted my heart!

Kakulu loved to laugh and was all about having a good time!

Allen (yes she's a girl!) was Alea's favorite.  She loves bright colors, so of course Alea had to play dress up with her!

Jonas and Brian were buds.  This little boy is so bright, he actually learned way more sign language than the deaf boy I was supposed to be working with did! They would love to have him fully mainstreamed for academics, but they don't have enough staff to help him with toiletring so he has to stay in the Special Needs class for now.  There isn't funding to hire 1-on-1 teacher assistants like we do here in the US and there's definitely no Special Education laws to provide the least restrictive environment for a child like him.  If anyone would like to pay the salary for a personal assistant for Brian to attend regular classes, I have no idea how much that would cost, but let me know if you're interested and I'll look into it (Joey found out that teachers only earn an average of $108/mth in Uganda, so I'm sure the rate for a teacher assistant would be very low...almost the same as sponsoring a child for a month...speaking of....

If anyone would like to sponsor an individual special needs child at New Hope, you do get pictures an updated letters on your particular child (of course they don’t write the letters themselves) but be aware that their higher budget require multiple sponsors at $30 each so you will not be the only one sponsoring them.  Right now the class is full and always operates “in the red” money-wise, so they could desperately use more sponsors.  Every Friday they have community day, where mothers with special needs children come pouring in from the surrounding villages.  They get free breakfast porridge  and the noon meal along with free physical therapy (New Hope pays a local therapist to come out once a week to work with these kids) and a parent educational meeting.  Their children are played with and receive loving attention for the day (which is usually NOT the case in the villages where they come from….there is such  strong cultural influence from witch doctors that disabled children are believed to be a curse or demon possessed).  Often this is the only reprieve and support these mothers can find during the week.  It is hard enough caring for all of your many children when you are cooking over an outdoor stove that you had to gather firewood for, boil all your water before you can drink, gather and make all your meals by hand, run your household with such limited resources, often as a single mother….but then add a child to disabilities to the mix and it is often more than the mother can bear.  Fathers are known to reject disabled children, so the mother has to choose between her husband (who is her safety, security, provider) or her disabled child.  The program could accept more of these community children into the class (not just on Fridays) full time if they would have enough sponsors.  If God is stirring your heart to sponsor one of these gems in the pictures that I worked with or a possible future student out in the surrounding villages, please let me know.  If is a $30/mth commitment, but of course you could always do higher increments of $30.  As any of you who have worked with special needs children know, they require so much more equipment, materials, supplies (diapers, wipes, etc).