Mother of disable child airs frustration

Caption:  Little Manu and her mother.

By MATTHEW VARI

Wednesday, September 25, 2013 (Midweek Chronicle, PNG)

A MOTHER of a disable child at Six Mile settlement aired her frustration at not being able to get her child into a special need school in the city, yesterday when interviewed by Brown Kapi for the Wheels for Change television program.

The mother who did not want to be named said that her daughter Manu aged five, who is paralyzed from the waist down, but intellectually smart for her age, saying that her ability to recall her earlier years memories, letters and numbers.

She took Manu to a special needs school run by an organization well known for assisting the disable and was told that she could not enroll her due to no spaces available.

Referring to service providers getting maximum benefits of donor funding that did not come to people with disabilities in settlements and other suburbs in the city, but were always collecting data only.

 “I am very worried about my daughter’s future, and I can’t find a baby sitter, while I look for a job, because I have nothing to give the sitter,” she said.

The mother made the call for more facilities for special needs children, who wanted an education just like any able child would.

Saying that she could not take her daughter to a State school, not knowing how they would cope with her.

“There needs to be awareness and special training given to teacher in the state education system.”

“This is because some teachers overlook children with learning disabilities.”

Mr Kapi agreed that the state needed to look seriously in capitalizing on the intellectual capacity of PWDs by setting up institutions for them.

“The government must be responsible and create institutions for people with disabilities (PWDs), because noting is wrong with us- if we can still use our minds.”

“It is through our mind that we can become independent productive members of the community- part of which the PNG Rehabilitation centre is doing, but we need the state’s support,” he said.

He referred to the O’Neill Government’s proposal to give pensions to PWDs through the revenue from the LNG project after 2015, as a step in the right direction.

However, he challenged the government not to stick to that because PWDs were people with dreams and skills that needed to be trained to uncap their ability.