Handicapable 6/7/12

Handicapable

Even though in America, the statement "handicapable" may be true, in Tanzania, this statement is many times untrue.

Hello everyone, it is Katie writing here. Well the holiday break has come to an end at FANAKA. On Monday, the school reopens to all the students. During holiday, I have been teaching form 2 English to a few students who live nearby that can travel back and forth everyday. One of these students was named Bernard. Bernard is a young man, that would show up everyday to class ready to learn. He loved to be called on and to be included in the class. From the looks of it, he looked liked every other student in the classroom. There was only one difference, he has a major hearing problem.
Bernard has a very hard time hearing. He can barely hear me speak when I  speak to him and he haa a very difficult time understanding English as it is more difficult to read my lips because he does not know the language as well as Swahili. This hearing problem holds Bernard back a lot. The teachers at the school do not have proper training on how to deal with a student who has a disability of any kind. Most of the teachers just ignore him in the classroom and do not call upon him nor do they allow him to participate in the classroom because they do not know how to include him or how to teach him. He just sits and observes and has a very difficult time understanding. He does not even have the books that he can read to try to understand by himself.
 

This is not just a problem for Bernard but a problem for many many students in Tanzania. We are very fortune in America to have the system we do to help people who have disabilities. Not only do we have special teachers who study and train to help students who has any type of disability, but we also have a system of many organizations and groups that allow students with disabilties to participate in extracurricular activities such as sports, music, arts, dance, etc. In Tanzania they cannot even get a proper education let alone a proper job that will be financially stable.

Luckily for Bernard there are people in Germany who do sponser him and do pay for him to be able to have a hearing aid device (even though it has been broken for a few weeks and will not be fixed until he gets the money from his sponser) and to get an education. There are many students here who do not have this chance. What happens to these students?