My name  is Yousuf  Omar, I am a naturalized Canadian Citizen. I was Born and brought-up in Ethiopia, which is located in the horn of  Africa.  I was totally blinded by an eye disease known as Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP.) when I was almost ten years old. I lived half of my school and all of my career life as a blind person. The insidious ailment  called RP, which  gradually caused  blindness along the various  developmental phases of my life has given me a profound experience of  blindness based on examining the different  perspectives  about how it felt  like to be blind. Particularly,  starting early in life,  as a blind child, coping with the realities of life and encountering the challenges  as blind student was incalculable.

More generally, I understood that becoming physically different from the rest of the society with in which children with disabilities have to live, was very hard to imagine. I had personally, observed the predicaments, children with some sort of sight impairment or total lack or loss in their vision, hearing, mobility and learning  faculties went through in their up-bringing. Without overstatement, always  they were disposed to be marginalized and segregated. This  social stigma, which in my opinion is flawed in judgment, in terms of perception and treatment in every single instance of disabled individual child, remains my single most important issue. Henceforth, since many time back home, I have vowed to myself, that I should exert a speck of an effort in trying to tackle and mitigate  the social impact of this  problem by addressing the access to quality education for  these children with all resource I can put in and can also be able to mobilize.

Some of the  situations, that have inspired and shaped my world view about disabled persons were my participation in several non-profit agencies for  fundraising events. Some of the activities, include climbing one of the tallest  buildings in the world, the Canadian National Tower ( CN Tower) on foot for United-Way’s fundraising events. I also always  participated aggressively,  through, my employer, Enbridge Gas employee fundraising programs. It is worth mentioning here, that, I twice participated in the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer, for Princes Margaret Hospital fundraising events and raised Significant amount of fund. Furthermore, I  Participated on the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) Toronto District Board of  Directors Advisory committee  for many years.

Situations of  Disable People  In Ethiopia

According to the UN disability fact sheet,  nearly 10% of the world’s population has disabilities, of which 80% live in developing countries. Most of those in developing countries do not have access to rehabilitation services due to a lack of resources and other various factors (1).

In  1994, Ethiopia’s  Population and Housing Census indicated a total population of 53,477,265 of whom, 991,916, or 1.8%  were disabled (2). Various   other sources, however, dispute  this statistics  to be well below the ten per cent estimate that is so often used as an approximation for disabled people in the country.

A study conducted on ten districts of the Southern Ethiopian Region by the Association of Education and Training Service for Disabilities found out that, out of a total population of 7,738,097, there were   102,953 disabled persons and of this number 33,424 were children (3). A Country Profile on Disabilities prepared in March 2002 by the Federal  Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Number of Persons with Disabilities in Oromia Region was 350,000 (4).

The state of persons with disabilities in Ethiopia is more tragic and severe due to the presence of diversified pre and post-natal disabling factors like infectious diseases, difficulties contingent to delivery, under-nutrition, malnutrition, harmful cultural practices, lack of proper child care and management, civil war and periodic drought and famine, and the absence of early primary and secondary preventive actions (5).

A study  paper  commissioned by UNESCO  in preparation for the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report (EFA) for Ethiopia, indicate that very few disabled children are receiving quality education in Ethiopia, either through inclusive or segregated education, and that provision (especially in special schools) is primarily in urban areas. However, the limitations and unreliability of statistics on disability, especially in relation to education, are also clearly illustrated. It is argued that attention could be given to improving the collection of statistical data, but this should not be either a pre-requisite or a substitute for providing education for disabled people. The paper highlights the lack of information available from the perspective of education beneficiaries in Ethiopia, and the lack of documenting of experience around special needs education and inclusiveness (6).

The study research  further indicates  that there is also limited guidance as to how disabled people fit into the wider marginalized or special needs groups, and how those who are implementing policies can ensure that disabled people are not subsequently sidelined within these groups. The paper argues that developing education and disability policies in a more culturally appropriate way might make them more easy to understand, accept and implement. International movements such as Education for All are discussed, highlighting their weaknesses around disability issues and the effect this has on national education policy.

It must be recognized that  the most likely obstacle to progress is the absence of reliable and consistent data on educational efforts and educational outcomes. In other words, there is no good educational  statistical system existing. The founder has observed and outlined this problem during his exploratory business trip to the designated region, the town of Mettu in western Ethiopia, Oromia region in  December 2014. He acknowledged that progress was being made in keeping educational data, although there still existed major problems. Having poor educational statistics means that it is difficult to get an accurate account of the facts. It makes the job of identifying problems and solutions almost impossible. Likewise, it is crucial to develop systems of indicators that may be of use to measure impacts. In short, we are operating in the dark when it comes to educational facts and outcomes generally. If anything, information about education of children with special needs is even more difficult to come by.

Access to Education for Disabled Children  in Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s Development plan III – indicated that there were still 15 special schools in the country and  285 special classes attached to these regular government schools. However, an increase in the number of special classes would still come nowhere near educating all of the country’s disabled children. Also in  Ethiopia, just two per cent of Ethiopia’s 190,000 deaf children currently access school primarily segregated school (7).

Ethiopia’s Special Need Education ( SNE) Program Strategy shows that there were five primary schools integrating disabled students (one enrolling blind students, and two each enrolling deaf and intellectually impaired students); and two secondary schools (one each enrolling blind and deaf students) (10). There has not been a comprehensive survey of disabled children in mainstream schools in Ethiopia, so the fact that only seven schools supposedly integrate disabled learners is may be  an underestimate. The figure is perhaps based on those schools that are officially recorded as part of government/ NGO projects for special needs or inclusive education. There are around 250 blind students in higher education institutions in Ethiopia, and that Addis Ababa University has 183 blind undergraduates and postgraduates.

A report by UNESCO  states a similar figure for Ethiopia: less than 1% of children with special needs have access to education. Tirussew Tefera, (8) in her study  notes that although children with disabilities and learning difficulties have been attending mainstream schools, their problems and needs are often not recognized or supported, which has contributed to the alarming early school drop-out rate in the country. Again no specific figures are given.

Ethiopia also faces a situation with very few early childhood development programmers. Those that do exist are primarily urban based. This means that many children are not receiving the early support they need. In particular, disabled children’s needs are not being identified before they start school, that means many disabled children, subsequently drop out in the first grade, when they find that their school cannot offer quality education that responds to their needs.

Major current problems concerning disable children    

The founder, during his visit in December  2014, by  consulting with educators, families of disabled children and non-profit agencies,  found out the following to be the major problems for disabled children.

– Lack  of public and community understanding of the need of disabled children

– Absence of information on the number and status of disabilities

– Shortage of basic needs, such as vocational training, educational tools, work  placement services, health facilities, and income support.

Based on the above background and major existing problems, the major goal of this project is to create conducive environment of learning education for disability children so that they  become independent productive citizens for their country’s sustainable development.

Specific Goals and Objectives 

The organization to be established  outlines the following goals and objectives to fulfill in and around its operating area of Mettu Town

• Work towards securing access to regular education for children with disabilities specifically in assisting the inclusion process by shoring up the disability awareness of teachers, peer students, the educators, parents and the community.
• Support the training of teachers including in-service training with knowledge and technology transfer from North America and Europe where there are best practices in the field with respect to alternative modes and formats of communication and teaching techniques and materials to support persons with disabilities.
• Provide individual support  for students with disability with mobility aids, devices and assistive technologies  required in their general education to facilitate effective academic and social development, some of the support include, but not limited to: facilitate the learning of sign language for deaf students; and provide materials   and facilitate the learning of mobility skills and braille or alternative scripts/large prints for blind or visually impaired students; facilitate the elimination of physical barriers in schools and neighbourhood areas for students with mobility challenges and at the same time provide wheelchairs or crutches for those who require.
• Bolster up the families of children with disabilities in direct financial support so the families do not, for economic reasons, resort to such unnecessary practice of marginalizing their children which could be manifested in various ways as: hiding a child in dark corners of house, abandonment, neglect and segregation which hinder the social integration and academic development of the children.
• Take   initiative to build organizational capacity that can provide resources necessary for the disabled children.
• Provide training to teachers by giving them the skills and special teaching techniques on how to handle disable student’s.
• Create awareness among the  society to actively  participate  in finding solutions for  disable communities
• Facilitate the provision of  school materials as required,  and  support schools  to have  available  building access for the disable children.
• Work cooperatively with similar organizations, locally and internationally  to plan and implement appropriate interventions.
• Perform the charitable activities based on consecutive surveys to find educational data as well as continuously develop mechanisms for monitoring impacts of the charity’s works:

Project Scope & Management Structure 

In the initial years the project would focus on the  Western province of Illubabor, in Mettu town  in Ethiopia,  where the founder has a good knowledge of the area and language.

It is envisaged to start the charity  work as a pilot project in Metu town, and scale up to the other   towns in the country and across the surrounding regions. It is the founder’s belief to start implementing the idea in relatively smaller place and with limited number of beneficiaries of the charitable activity. Therefore, the organization will start its services with a handful of children with various types of disabilities with their families who are identified to live in and around Metu town but who do not get necessary individual support in their education. The long-term plan is to expand the activity to cover other areas based on the well-assessed finding of the proposed pilot project.

Practical considerations dictate that there are two levels of management structure distinctly organized to run the whole organization. One of the two entities is intended to operate as a locally registered charity organization in Ethiopia Oromia Region Ilu-Ababora Zone Metu city administration. This entity runs the day-to-day management of the organization. It will have a board of Directors, a General Assembly and an Executive management office with dedicated staff in each office and organ of management.

The founder of the organization resides in Canada North America. He wants toseize the opportunity living overseas far off the project area to coordinate a separate but connected entity which is in the process of being registered charity to help the activity in Africa specifically the would be established charity in Metu town Ethiopia. The North America based charity will oversee the activity of the Ethiopian based organization. Run by the founder together with Board of Trustees, the overseas charity has the following basic functions:

Conduct research, collect data, synthesize and analyze diverse and complex information, to prepare project write ups and apply for private and public grants (raise fund 😉 design work flows  and procedures that constitute project deliverables; compile narrative and financial reports on performance of activities to donors and stakeholders, mobilize volunteers and other experts with affordable cost from North America who are willing to go and teach or transfer their skills and expertise to relevant people in the field, the project area. The following activities will be under taken regularly in the life of the project.

• Regular visits to programs
• Early identification and intervention
• Individual consultation
• Program consultation
• Program adaptations
• Staff, provider and parent training
• Environmental assessments
• Service coordination and referral
• Enhanced staffing/intensive resource support, when needed
• We work with our members and networks to influence national policy.
• We are committed to working with Governments, UN partners, Civil Society Organizations disabled people’s organizations, academia, and the private sector to implement disability inclusive programmes and policies, and advocate for the rights for all children
• Work with local areas, disabled young people and parents.
• To develop leadership on the rights of children with disabilities and build capacity among our staff members.
• Strengthening child protection systems, and identifying and addressing social norms which cause discrimination –
• Ensure, and follow-up and those working in child protection areas, whether, they are   capable of preventing, detecting and responding to the specific needs of children with disabilities in the case of violence, abuse, exploitation or neglect, including those children whose disability prevents them from reporting. In addition work may be needed to reduce stigmatization and discrimination of children with disabilities.

UN, disability fact sheet, International Convention on the right of persons with disabilities, UN New York 2006References

1. Ethiopian Population and Housing Census 1994.
2. Association of Education and Training Service for disabilities, South Ethiopia Hawassa, 2012.
3. Country Profile on Disability, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, March 2002.
4. Background paper prepared for the Education for all Global Monitoring Report Education for disabled people in Ethiopia and Ruwanda, April 2009.
5. Ibid
6. Tirusew T. (1998) Persons with disabilities of high achievement profile in Ethiopia.