Egypt: Fighting against taboos to reintegrate children with handicaps
20 Jul 2012 Child Protection SystemsEgypt
In a country where children often have no access to decent health care due to their poverty or the lack of well-trained professionals, children with handicaps are particularly numerous and get no suitable aid. Handicaps are a cultural taboo, and as well the youngsters are marginalised by their communities. The absence of policy on this subject does not encourage their integration, even at the level of schooling. And yet, more than three million children suffer from handicaps of various degrees, whether from road accidents, poor conditions at birth, and non-existent early detection.
In order to relieve the needs of these children and their families, at the beginning of 2010 Terre des hommes (Tdh) started up a project for readjustment on a community basis for the physically handicapped. This project is run in collaboration with Handicap International in the rural districts of Assiout and Qena in Upper Egypt. Over eight thousand disabled people and four thousand families are affected. The aim is to integrate them better within their communities. To do this, Tdh involves the families, national NGOs, the communities and the authorities. The delegation on the spot builds centres for resources and training so that the issues of disability in Egypt are professionally handled.
To ensure the viability of the project
Tdh has opened two centres for resources and training in which professionals with connections to the matter of handicaps (physiotherapists, social workers, supervisors, people in charge of centres, etc.) attend training courses to learn how to work with the disabled in this sort of context.
Many specialists (ministries, universities, consultants and local NGOs) are today working on official papers defining the national strategy, standards of quality and a training programme. These documents will become the basis of the various angles for treating the issue of the handicapped in Egypt.
On the project’s progress
Every centre for resources and training already has a supervisor and three teachers, all trained by Tdh to respond to the specific requirements of people with a handicap.
In parallel, community workers are also being given training. They move around the villages to promote the reintegration of children with handicaps within their own communities. Each community worker looks after some forty youngsters, with direct care as well as with advice.
At the end of 2013, there will be more than 400 people who will have benefited by these specific training courses. Egypt will thus have trained professionals capable of running similar projects in other regions of the country.
