Special Mothers Project establishes Inclusive Centre

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.