The Zambia Association of Parents for Children with Disabilities (ZAPCD) has expressed satisfaction over the Onse Ana Aphunzile project that has been implemented in the last two years in Chadiza District of Eastern Province.
Organization Programmes Manager for Inclusive Early Childhood Education programme, Charity Tembo, says so far 180 children have been enrolled in the district.
“Our target for the whole three years is to ensure that we enroll children with disabilities totalling to 270, as we end the project next year by August,” she said.
Ms Tembo has since called on parents to ensure that they allow children with disabilities to attend school instead of hiding them in their homes.
“Hiding children can only worsen the situation at hand, so I want to call on parents to ensure that such children access education which is their right, and being will enable the child to open up fully and participate in various programs for their good,” she added.
Ms Tembo says the schools that have so far enrolled the children includes Chadiza Primary school, Chilenga Primary school, Katantha Primary school, Nsadzu and Kabvumo Primary schools.
This is in line with a three years project’s mandate of enrolling Children with disabilities in Early Childhood education dubbed “Ana Onse Aphunzile” that will be finalised next year.
This came to light during a two days community training in disability inclusion and Child protection that aims to impact Knowledge into communities on disability inclusion and Child protection.
Various community members including Parents Teachers Committee members, Headmens, Community warfare Assistant Committee members, church members and parents attended the meeting.
And community members have expressed concern with the high number of children with disabilities in schools that fail to be part of the school feeding programme due to barriers in movements.
One of the representatives, Christopher Jere, called on schools to ensure that a deliberate policy is put in place to accommodate such children.
Mr Jere also mentioned that schools need to work with PTA members to ensure that children with disabilities are well taken care of and are included in the school programs.
