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Its been a busy and interesting week here in Lawra. Continuing the work on the Special Needs Awareness Programme (SNAP), I went with ATE consultant, Kenneth Gan, to make some home visits to some of our SNAP families (see photo album: SNAP Home Visits)
It gave a sense of just how far some people have to travel to get to the monthly meetings. In some cases walking maybe 30 mins with a disabled child before even reaching the roadside where the ATE nyabba (motorkia) can pick them up.
The houses were traditional compound houses; a cluster of single room structures with thatched or corrugated iron roofs, surrounded by a wall with a courtyard in the middle. Mostly we sat outside the compounds under the shade of a tree to complete the SNAP survey. Although one or two were not home, so we caught up to one at the nearby school grounds, cracking groundnuts with her friends and another in town to collect funds from the District Assembly for her disabled child.
One particular situation really stood out for me from the home visits. We arrived at one home to find a young boy who was clearly both mentally and physically disabled, lying filthy on his belly in the dirt, his face covered in drool and flies, and he began wailing at our intrusion. His mother was dozing close by with two other small tots not realising that he was now lying in the hot sun. She quickly bathed him while his grandmother, his main carer, was called to come back home from farming nearby. This distressing scene raises many concerns but seeing him clean and smiling in his grandmother's loving arms was incredible. Once treated with dignity and love…it was transformational in every aspect. A reminder of the importance of what SNAP members have been telling us - that the programme has helped them to accept their disabled children and learn how to take care of their personal hygiene which has changed the way the community see them too.
This home visit also highlighted the importance of reaching out more to engage other family members, other than the main carers who already come to the SNAP meetings. And the need to reach out to support more disabled children and their families who are as yet unsupported.
If you would like to support the SNAP programme, you can sponsor my London Bridge Trek: https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/leelashanti. Or via the ATE website donate page: http://ateghana.org/donations/. Or if you have some skills which you would like to volunteer, please get in touch: [email protected]
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