Over the past few months I’ve travelled several times to Kilifi on the Kenyan Coast to work with Kilifi EARC and their related community based organisations. I never turn down a chance to visit Kilifi, it’s an active centre and a great town, incidentally with fantastic beaches!
On my first trip in January 2010 I visited Mtwpa Primary School Special Unit to meet with their parent’s group. On arrival I couldn’t belive my eyes; the school is vast.
The Grand Entrance
Like Kerugoya School for the Hearing Impaired, Mtwpa Primary was entirely re-built a few years back with the support of a local donor. They decided to keep one of the original classrooms as a reminder of their, ‘humble beginning’.
The 'Humble Beginning' of the School
The school, Kenya’s biggest, has a suitably large number of pupils with over 2500 young people from age 3-13 years attending. There are plans to soon open a link secondary school and polytechnic on site so the site is set to become truly enormous.
The majority of children board and as part of the new build, lovely colourful dormitories were added.
The Girl's Dormitory at Mtwpa Primary School
For reasons I failed to figure out the school is decorated by some awesome vintage cars. The children love playing in them at break times. I suggest that this amazing idea be exported everywhere.
The Ideal School Accessory
The Special Unit has its own compound within the school, currently with three classrooms for children with cerebral palsy, hearing impairment and the mentally challenged although they are hoping to expand to have an entire unit purely for the hearing impaired. the school accepts children with many disabilities and integrates them into the most appropriate classroom. Although this isn’t always ideal the children seem well supported and the teachers do their best to cater for their needs.
The school operates with limited resources but has taken advantage of some great opportunities. Staff were recently trained on creating assistive devices such as standing frames for children with cerebral palsy. The frames can be built using easily accessible materials so the staff can continue to build more as needed.
A real strength of the unit is their dedicated parents group. There are 160 children in the unit and 158 parents are members of the group. As many of the children are from low-income families the group was established to raise funds for medical treatment, assistive devices and other support for the children. The group is in the process of setting up income generating activities and have already acquired their first cow for the sale of milk and have planted 1000 seedlings which when mature will be sold for timber. They have grand plans for a poultry project and the expansion of the dairy farm and if their current projects continue to go well I have no doubt they will be successful. See below for a picture of some of the members during our tour of the school back in January.
Members of Mtwapa Special Unit Parents with Disabled Children Association
Filed under: schools
