News:
March 31, 2014
Mrs Ursula Owusu, Member of Parliament for Ablekuma West, has threatened to transport over 60 Children with Disabilities to the Minister of Education and the Accra Mayors offices on Monday March 31 if no action was taken to relocate them.
The children from the Dansoman Special School are cramped into one deplorable classroom, where they sometimes soil themselves, due to the lack of toilet and urinal facilities in the school.
The Lawmaker has also called on the Ministry of Education to move swiftly to save the children, who are suffering from varied levels and degrees of disabilities from any imminent danger.
Mrs Owusu noted that it was depressing seeing children with such deformities without running water, toilet and urinal facilities, compelling some to defecate openly in the classrooms.
She said when the room got warm during the afternoons the children become agitated and knock their heads together while others fall, sustaining injuries.
She said the Accra Metropolitan Assembly pledged last October to relocate the children from the current classroom to a new structure, but had failed to do so.
Mrs Owusu said it was intriguing that the new structure had been completed and locked up, whilst the children were still packed up in the current classroom with high-hilled stair case and potholes.
According to her, several attempts to get city authorities and the Ghana Education Service to liberate the children from their current state of condition had proved futile.
The lawmaker has, therefore, threatened to transport the children to the offices of the Ministry of Education and the AMA on Monday to present a petition.
The childrens disabilities range from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders, blindness and deafness.
Others suffer learning disabilities, medical disabilities, physical disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, and speech and language disabilities.
A Media Caucus on Disability team, which visited the school in October 2013 revealed that the children urinate right in front of the classroom and the canteen, which emanates a foul stench and house flies.
The children had been cramped into a single classroom with high-steeped slopping stair cases with holes, making it disability unfriendly.
The school lacks potable water, lighting system, toilet facilities, appropriate desks and specially trained teachers, as well as teaching and learning resources.
GNA