Services | Oyesigye Special Child Foundation

Our name tells our story:

Oyesigye Special Child Foundation (OSCF) strives to develop Special children’s potential so that they can achieve the best in life out of their abilities.

Since the Foundations' registration as a Community Based Organisation, the following activities have been started on:

1. Registration

Registration

We are developing a data bank of all children with disabilities and other special needs in the Municipality. The exercise is being done in collaboration with Village Chairpersons (Local Council One) in all the 169 villages. Soon, we will have information on how many, which conditions, gender, how many are in school etc.

2. Community sensitization

Community sensitization

This programme has no specific audience. We visit religious centres, schools, local council meetings, newsletters and other media including hoisting a website. We demystify disability and other special needs and make them understood and accommodated. We measure success when we see parents enrolling their children with disability in schools, frequent calls asking where to take the children or where to find services.

3. Home based programme

Home based programme

As noted above some parents don’t know what to do with their children. It is worsened by fear of stigma from the community therefore they can ask anybody other than keeping the child indoors. This promotes secondary disabilities like contractures, continued loss of vision or hearing. A child who has behavioral problems gets worse.
Through our home based programme, parents are guided on how to support their children. We demonstrate how to develop homemade devices i.e. corner seats, parallel bars etc. with continued practice, a child learns to walk. This intervention can be rehabilitative or habilitative and the purpose of this is to have the child enroll in a mainstream school.

4. Training of teachers in Inclusive Education practice

Training of teachers in Inclusive Education practice

To be able to include learners with disability and other forms of Special Needs, teachers need training. UNESCO (2005) observes that Inclusion may call for changes and modifications in content, approaches, structures and strategies with a common vision which covers all children of the appropriate age range bearing in mind that all children should be catered for in the regular system. This implies that, when teachers are trained and equipped with knowledge and skills in Inclusive Education, they will be able to manage inclusive education classrooms and thus supporting learners with special learning needs.

Early studies had showed that as well as being apprehensive about the quality of the academic work that children with disabilities in regular classes could produce, teachers also were concerned about their own levels of preparation for inclusive practice (Bender, 1985). It’s expected therefore, that knowledge and skills in Inclusive Education practice will arm the teachers and they will be able to deliver appropriate services to the CWDSNs. Ignorance of what to offer has been partly the cause of negative attitude. ’Teacher attitude is a key factor in the success of educational reform efforts’

Janiak (1997).

Janiak, notes that teachers play an important role in the implementation of inclusive education. The same view is held by Sharon (March 1998) who noted that the classroom teacher is in a position to play a key role in facilitating the successful inclusion of learners with special needs into the regular classroom.
Our training is ongoing and we do the monitoring to check on how what we offered is being implemented.

5. Clinics

Clinics

Many parents cannot afford to take their children for some specialized services and in particular speech & language and physiotherapies, they decide to leave the children at home. Children outgrow and at times the condition may never be remedied. We organize clinics for speech and physio respectively. Being our new and costly programme, we move slowly but people to benefit are very many. Speech therapists are very scarce at least in western Uganda.

6. Vocational training

Vocational training

As noted above, it’s important a child is trained in some skills even when he/ she can’t go on with academics. We now train the youth with Down syndrome in candle making and we intend to consider other skills. A long list is waiting.

7. Child sponsorship

Child sponsorship

Some children are not in school because they don’t have scholastic materials, uniform, they need a simple corrective surgery or an assistive device to be able to attend school. We look forward to having all children with disability and other special needs attend mainstream schools and a few who can’t be enrolled at Tukore special school or in the two units for Visual impairment or for hearing impairment respectively.
We are appealing to well-wishers to intervene and sponsor our children for respective social services, education being the priority.

What We Do