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2021-03-19

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[N] It Is A Blatant Lie That I’ve Declared My Prez Ambition-Agric Minister
[S] Accra Mayor to change face of sports in Greater Accra
[S] Ambassador Lutterodt charges GOC prez to tackle Martha Bissah issue
[S] Ben Nunoo-Mensah hits ground running for GOC
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[N] Baby Harvesting: More suspects picked
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2021-03-17

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[I] Half of UK managers back mandatory Covid vaccines for office work
[I] Brussels to propose Covid certificate to allow EU-wide travel

2021-03-16

[I] Nick Candy leads £1m drive to oust London mayor Sadiq Khan
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General News

[ 2016-05-10 ]

Ghana’s Special Schools in Ruins
Dejected, desolate, distressed, in doldrums of
desperation are the most probable words to
summarize the plight of disability and
rehabilitation centers in Ghana.

There exist some 24 special schools dotted across
the country designated to train and give some
economic empowerment to persons living with
various forms of disabilities. But these schools
live in dire straits at the mercy of charity
mainly because of delay in the release of
government subventions and neglect by society.

Background:

There is an estimated 2.5% of Ghanaians living
with various forms of disabilities. Concern about
the special need for care and protection for the
disabled came to the fray in Ghana as far back as
the 1960s after media reports and stories about
the inhumane treatment PWDs were subjected to
especially in rural areas begun gaining public
attention. Myths about persons born with specific
defects were judged spirit children and
automatically sentenced to be killed to pacify the
Gods of their villages. Several persons with
disability were found chained, locked up and
sometimes given concoctions to aid their quick
death to avoid the stigma and burden of keeping
them.

The Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah Conventions Peoples
Party (CPP) administration set up a committee to
investigate issues pertaining to disability in the
country. One of the recommendations to government
at the time was for government to take full charge
of the training, welfare and employment of persons
living with disabilities. The committee also had a
reintegration component to its recommendations
which was linked directly to economic empowerment.
The idea was for government to provide a startup
capital to set up these citizens and have the
social welfare department, supervise their
activities till they were fully independent. This
saw a domination of ‘disabled’ teachers,
teaching craft in elementary and middle schools.
Several of these trained people were given jobs
that matched with their set skills in public
institutions.

Since then, Ghana has in the past recent years had
several nongovernmental organizations and state
recognized associations and authorities
established to champion the course of people
living with one or more forms of impairment. The
most vibrant associations have done quite some
substantial work in the areas of deafness/hearing
impairments, mental/intellectual disabilities,
blind/visual impairment and various forms of
physical impairment.

Government has set in place a council for persons
living with disability, the mental health board
and the ministry of gender, children and social
responsibility to oversee and support the affairs
of persons with disability. The country has also
ratified the persons with disability act 2006
whose moratorium ends this year for full
implementation.

In addition to this, Social Welfare offices have
been established in all districts across the
country, to do sensitization and registration of
persons with disability. Government has also set
aside 2% of the district assembly common fund to
cater for persons with disability in the country.
The president John Dramani Mahama in his 2016
state of the nation address also promised to lay
before parliament a proposition to increase the
disability share of the DACF to 3%. The social net
pro poor program, the Livelihood Empowerment
against Poverty program established by the
government of Ghana has also made provision for
subsistence subventions for people who by reason
of their extreme forms of disability are
economically inactive.

Notwithstanding all the above, a considerable
portion of these investments and efforts have gone
into sensitization and advocacy leaving the very
important aspect of training and empowering the
person with disability to its sorry fate. Perhaps
because the majority of the very people appointed
to make decisions have not had a feel of
disability and the challenges a person with
disability must encounter in a country like Ghana
to attain a decent training and be recognized
enough to secure a source of livelihood.

Sorry state of the Edwinase Rehabilitation Center

My nosing around some rehabilitation centers found
me in the Edwinase Rehabilitation Center, a
boarding school in Kumasi in the Ashanti region.
It is structured to train persons with multiple
disabilities in various handicrafts including
leatherwork, bead making, mat making and sewing.
The structures were built in the era of the first
president of Ghana and have not seen any
renovation since.

The school runs along two major areas of its
curricular i.e. rehabilitation and vocation, two
very demanding subject areas. A term lasts four
months in school with intermittent two months
vacations to allow students go back home to bond
with family.

I get to interact with the manager of the rehab
center Mr. Modesto Ayiwoli and his first words
confirm my notion. “Sensitization has been
impressive. But why do we create awareness,” He
question rhetorically.

“We create awareness to encourage people to
bring out their children or relatives who have
disabilities and this is why rehabilitations such
as mine have been established. Now what is left?
You sensitize, create the awareness; you ask
people to bring them; now they bring them and then
your training falls short. It’s like having
bought all the ingredients; prepared food; invited
people to come and they come and cannot eat the
food. This is the situation all the institutions
taking care of persons with disability without
singling out mine, find ourselves. This is the
missing point we have all got as a nation,
regarding the training of our persons with
disability,” he lamented.

Making direct reference to his school, Mr. Ayiwoli
disclosed that his center had not received any
subvention from government the whole year as at
press time. He also indicated sadly that their
monthly salaries were in arrears since January
2016. He noted that several attempts to get
parents to support the education of their wards
with some toiletteries and monetary contribution
have not also yielded much as according to him
over 90% of all ‘disabled’ children come from
very poor families.

“Those who have the desire to help don’t
simply have the means because I can tell you for a
fact that a majority of about 99% of them come
from very very poor families. Out of that number
again another fact that has been established is
that 80% of these children have single mothers
with no fathers catering for them. Naturally a
single mother with other normal children will
channel her resources to her normal children
leaving parental support for these children
lacking. To further compound issues, you cannot
enforce any measure for the child to go back home
when they run out of basic needs or when their
parents are not making any contributions to
support their training. And imagine how you will
have to feed all these children for four months
with no support from the state,” He bemoaned.

He is worried the state and level of teaching that
he desires for the school is being frustrated as
teaching and learning equipments for the very
practical based style of teaching that the school
requires is not adequately available.

He also expressed worry about government’s
decision to fix prepaid meters in public
institutions without adding rehabilitation centers
to the exempt list. The Edwinase Rehab Center now
runs on a three phase prepaid meter which leaves
the school in darkness whenever the school is
unable to keep up with payment of utilities. To
make things worse, government does not have any
provisions for utility bills of special schools
across the country. This leaves the bills to be
shouldered out of the pockets of managers of these
rehab centers which are not known to be engaged in
any income generating activities.

Mr. Ayiwoli tells me he personally wrote a memo
drawing government’s attention to the looming
difficulty the directive would pose to special
schools to no avail.

“We had to be left on the credit system just as
the prisons, the army, the barracks and other
essential state establishments but nobody paid
heed to this. ECG brought a three phase prepaid
meter meaning we must always have cash to buy our
power. But since 2010 I have not received a pesewa
for the purchase of electricity,” He recounted
with a laughter of frustration.

Mr. Modesto Ayiwoli also divulged that compared to
the prisons and other schools under the Ghana
Education Service where there is a budgetary
allocation of feeding students per head, special
schools have no such unitary allocations. This
makes government unanswerable to the amount it
releases to the Edwinase rehabilitation center
leaving the institution to the mercy of charity.

Another area of concern which the school is
grappling with is the purchase of essential drugs
for the children. Most of these drugs are not
covered under the National Health Insurance
Scheme. Mr. Modesto Ayiwoli and his team narrate
countless experiences where he has had to sleep
over in the dormitories when the children fall
ill. He has also had to make out of the pocket
payments for fees and bills to cater for the
health needs of his students.

Factors responsible for this dire situation

The position that rehabilitation centers like the
Edwinase rehabilitation center find themselves can
be attributable to both systemic and social
factors.

The society appears to have adopted an indifferent
approach towards the welfare of PWDs shirking the
responsibility to the overburdened shoulders of
government. For many, it is the duty of government
to see to the wellbeing of these institutions.
Verifiably so, a majority of Ghanaians are not
even aware of the existence of such institutions
and the kind of help they require from the
public.

The systemic leg of this problem that Mr. Ayiwoli
harped passionately is the lack of a well
structured system to make direct budgetary
allocation to rehabilitation centers. No training
institution under the social welfare department
has a budgetary allocation specifically allocated
to each institution. Their finances are attached
to the financial encumbrances of the regional
directors. The training institutions only receive
some subventions at the discretion of the director
after he/she receives monthly transfers from
government.

“If institutions were to have direct budget
lines, that this is your utility, this is your
feeding cost per child, then this can be
calculated and the money is made available. But
for now, until the district director receives his
money and decides where he should allocate how
much, it means all these institutions operating
under the director, receive nothing.”Modesto
explained.

He noted that this is “an administrative anomaly
that needs to be addressed.”

Appeal to Government.

Making an appeal to government Mr. Ayiwoli
strongly urged the state to man up to deal with
the dire situation on the ground. He also
condemned what he described as the political
victimization of directors and managers who come
out to state the plain plight of these state
institutions.

“We are not dealing with documents in an office.
We are dealing with human lives and as a nation
someone must speak out if we are suppose to move
on. I don’t seek to talk against any government.
I am talking about what affects me provided the
authorities will listen with a proper ear and to
find out solutions. Unfortunately when you speak
people will not listen to the substance or bother
to find out the truth and it degenerates into a
blame game because it connotes some negativity
which affects government, “he fumed.

One picture that still strums a cord in my heart
is the smiles of these deaf, blind, autistic and
mentally retarded children even under such
deplorable conditions. I watched and dazzled when
it was time for lunch break and Mr. Ayiwoli had to
dash to the kitchen and back supporting to
organize the children to have their bowls of gari
and soup. The plight of these children and whether
or not they will become an asset or burden to
society lies right in this deserted land. The
public cannot be faulted or pressured to support;
though it will directly benefit or suffer from the
life outcomes of these children. The back however
stops with the state which has as part of its
mandate to provide a safe environment for persons
living with disabilities.

Source - Ultimate1069.com



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