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Written by Caroline Bidmon
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Wednesday, 08 March 2006 23:52 |
On
March 5th a delegation of teachers and pupils from the Irente Rainbow
School (IRS) were guests at the Sunday Service in Mlalo Parish in the
Southern District of the North Eastern Diocese.
They were welcomed by the District Pastor Rev. Mbilu and had the chance
to talk to the congregation about the work that is going on at the IRS
and in particular about the Outreach Programme.
|  Caroline Bidmon and Robert Shehaghilo presented the Outreach Programme in Mlalo |
| Why do we start an Outreach Programme? |  Children and parents from Mlalo with teachers from IRS | The
in January 2005 opened IRS with its 28 pupils is the only institution
in the district that takes care of those children. There are no
reliable figures about the number of disabled children and adults but
according to estimations of the World Health Organisation (WHO) the
number of people with an intellectual impairment should not be under
3000, the majority of those are probably children or youth. It is not
possible to have them all at IRS. Even if we had enough houses, money
and staff, we believe that children should grow up with their families
in the village community instead of being put in a far away boarding
school. Therefore it is necessary to develop structures to care for
those children in the villages. The Tanzanian Ministry of Education
promotes Inclusive Education to provide all disabled children with
their basic right of schooling. Looking at the situation in most
Tanzanian primary schools with few and poorly trained teachers and up
to 100 children in one class, Inclusive Education for all disabled
children will not be realized in the nearer future. So far most
children and their families in the district do not get any kind of
support.
A lot of those children live under very poor conditions. They are
hidden at home because the families are ashamed or do not know what
else to do with them. Intellectually impaired children are often mocked
at and mistreated in other ways by other children and even adults.
Even if families really love and except their disabled child is often an almost unbearable burden.
What do we want to achieve with the Outreach Programme?
The aim of our Outreach Programme is to a develop community based
structure to offer support to all intellectually impaired and autistic
children and their families in the Lushoto District. For this we want
to use the already existing structure of the diocese that through its
parishes reaches out in almost every village of the district.
As a first step we visit all the parishes. We introduce the Outreach
Programme in the congregations and through this we start to create
awareness and a sense of responsibility towards this very vulnerable
and long forgotten group of children. With the support of the pastors
we organize gatherings with the intellectually impaired children and
their parents (not only Christians, but children of all religions) that
live I the area to make a first contact and informing them about our
plans. After having visited all parishes we will have an idea about the
number of the children and their needs. We then will invite interested
people from the different parishes to a seminar to IRS to get a short
training. These “community helpers” then will have regular contact with
the children and their families in the villages and support and advise
them. They will be supported and advised by the Outreach Team of the
IRS.
Through this we hope to improve the living situation of intellectually
impaired and autistic children even without having lots of financial
resources and trained personnel.
|  Teachers and pupils from IRS playing with intellectually impaired children from Mlalo | | Encouraging start | The start of the Outreach Programme in the Mlalo Parish was very
successful. We were warmly welcomed in the congregation. After the
service we had the chance to meet with seven intellectually impaired
children and their parents. We had a good time playing together and
talking to all parents to collect information on each child. Even
knowing that there are more children in the area that are still hidden,
this was an encouraging start.
In the late afternoon the delegation from IRS left Mlalo having the
good feeling of having achieved something on this day: We gave hope to
the intellectually impaired children and their parents!
May God be with us in our efforts to develop our Outreach Programme to
give hope to all intellectually impaired and autistic children and
their families in the Lushoto District! |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 09 March 2006 00:08 )
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