Ellen Affam-Dadzie, the mother of a seven year old girl with cerebral palsy has set up an inclusive education centre to enable the parents of children with cerebral palsy to work and earn an income.
The Centre called “With God cerebral palsy Ghana” will offer free physiotherapy services and quality care for children with cerebral palsy.
Mrs Affam-Dadzie in an interview with the media said she knows how stressful and frustrating it is to have a child with cerebral palsy and decided to offer support this way to enable especially mothers of such children to earn an income:
“I do not believe that any family or person should become poor simply because they had a child with cerebral palsy, the mothers’ inability to work among other factors is what causes many families to kill these children or even wish their children dead,” she said.
Mrs Affam-Dadzie highlighted how since government was not doing much to support children with cerebral palsy and their families, she decided to start the centre as her contribution to support such families in her own small way:
“We also intend to set the mothers up in small enterprises so we train the unemployed mothers in soap making, batik and tie and dye making, beads and accessories among other things, and we hope that corporate organizations will come on board to help us enhance the lives of families with children who have cerebral palsy”.
The Centre will also offer children with cerebral palsy an opportunity to mingle with other children. ”We are practicing inclusion”, Mrs Affam-Dadzie said, calling on government to ensure that the inclusive education policy embraces the majority of children with cerebral palsy, if not all.
She commented on how the very few schools in Ghana that admit children with cerebral palsy are very expensive, many cannot afford them, and went to on to ask what happens to the majority out there.
Mrs Hannah Awadzi, Initiator of the Special Mothers Project lauded the initiative saying “this is what the project is looking for; we need mothers to take up the fight for services and do something to help children with cerebral palsy.
She called on government and corporate organizations to support the centre and help it thrive while calling for more volunteers at home and abroad to help make the With God Cerebral Palsy Centre viable.
