The Special Mothers Project, an advocacy and awareness
creation programme on Cerebral Palsy issues have started an Inclusive Centre
that will provide recreational day care services to children aged five and
below
The Special Mothers Inclusive Centre (SMIC) will also serve
as a respite for families with young children especially those with cerebral
palsy to enable the families work like any other family
Mrs Hannah Awadzi, Founder and Executive Director of the
Special Mothers Project, in a statement said:
“The Inclusive Centre was born out of my own frustrations to provide a good upbrining
and a decent life for my daughter with cerebral palsy”
“It has been very difficult getting her into mainstream
school, I have approached a lot of schools and the only response I get is “No,
we can’t or an overly epensive facility which we can’t afford”
Mrs Awadzi, a mother of three strong willed toddlers, holds
a first degree in psychology with linguistics from the University of Ghana, a
Communications Professional who also works as a journalists and have taken a
lot of online courses on caring for vulnerable children as well as have
practical hands on experience with children
She said: “I have always run away from the responsibility of
establishing a facility like this, I was bent on talking corporate Ghana and
other organization into establishing such facilities but the response have been very low”
Mrs Awadzi said the critical growing years for children are
the early ages between zero and six years and that is the period that the
parents need all the peace of mind to
decide what is good for their child especially if the child has special needs,
cerebral palsy for that matter.
However, those early year becomes quite frantic especially
for families raising children with cerebral palsy, that is the time parents are directed to all sort of places
with the aim of looking for a “Cure”,
Mrs Awadzi said
She said a major role of the centre will be to provide
professional counselling to such families, having gone through that as a mother
of a child with cerebral palsy and having trained as a professional counsellor.
The Inclusive Centre located at Salem Estate, Malejor, along
the Adentan – Dodowa road will focus on
recreational therapy (play) for the children,knowing that children learn a lot
through play with the aim of developing their brains
Mrs Awadzi said the Special Mothers Project will also
continue to engage society, especially the media, the department of social
welfare and other stakeholders to continue conversations on how we can together
enhance the lives of families raising children with cerebral palsy and achieve
inclusion.
