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 The following problems are the main reasons for our planning of the Rainbow School:
The presence of mentally handicapped children at Irente Childrens Home Irente Childrens Home (hereafter abbreviated ICH) is an orphanage that has been operating since 1962 under the ELCT-NED. It receives children who have lost their mothers or both parents. Throughout the years, ICH has been receiving children with different types of disabilities. Without revealing any names, I will briefly mention two examples. - Today there is an orphan who has lived at ICH for 32 years. This orphan was brought as a small baby girl and now she is a grown up woman. She is mentally and physically disabled. Her relatives have never turned up to visit her and therefore the personnel at ICH have set aside two rooms for her where she lives with an assistant. She has never attended school.
- In addition to this woman, a physically and mentally handicapped girl has been staying at ICH during the last year. Unfortunately, she passed away two months ago at the age of two. Neither her father nor her relatives appeared for the funeral that took place at Irente.
As it is now, the problem is that the personnel at ICH lack competence in how to help children with disabilities. In addition to that, knowledge about appropriate care to disabled children is still scarce in the district of Lushoto. There is no habilitation center in the whole district, neither an alternative school for children with learning difficulties. Occasionally, such children are sent to the nearest consultant hospital, the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC). At the KCMC there are qualified specialists and therapists. However, this hospital is situated more than 200 km from ICH and therefore the only possibility to utilize those skills is by sporadic consultation. The personnel who accompany the children to that hospital are taught how to treat them with massage but there is no training/therapy program. Therefore, apart from providing disabled orphans with basic care, no one has the knowledge of how to help them. It needs to be borne in mind that orphans with such problems might stay at ICH for the rest of their lives and therefore the challenge of helping them is ours. The need for alternative education/training for mentally handicapped and autistic children in the district of Lushoto According to the UN convention on human rights, education is a basic right for all people (article 26 in the UN convention on human rights). Intellectual impairment hinders children from acquiring this right. As mentioned above there is no center or school that can provide alternative education/training for mentally handicapped and autistic children within the area of Lushoto district. Without announcing the opening of a school for mentally handicapped and autistic children we already know about more than 20 children in Lushoto town and Irente. Even from other parts of the country we receive requests from parents. The teachers at regular primary school mostly do not know how to help intellectual impaired children because they have no knowledge of training and teaching those children. Also in classes up to 80 or even 100 students it is impossible to help the individual child who has problems keeping up with the others. This lack of appropriate alternatives for mentally handicapped and autistic children has to be addressed in order to offer education/training that is suitable for them so as to provide these children with their basic right. Wrong attitude regarding mentally handicapped and autistic people Mentally handicapped and autistic people are often met with negligence and ridicule. They are marginalized members of society. Negligence and ridicule have destructive effects since they create a feeling of inferiority in a person. It is not unusual to hear people teasing, mocking or laughing at those who are mentally handicapped and autistic. This sort of behavior is harmful for any persons self-image. Equally devastating is the arrogance expressed among schoolteachers when they persistently refer to mentally handicapped and autistic pupils as stupid. The self-esteem of pupils persistently exposed to such treatment gets seriously damaged. A sad fact is that parents tend to hide children with disabilities. This does not necessarily mean that parents dont love their children. The underlying reason might be ignorance and despair since parents dont know how to handle such children. As a result, disabled children are isolated and cut off from social communion. Almost every person we talk to about this subject knows at least one example where a handicapped child is hidden by the family.
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Institutions 
