Former Vice President Gharib Bilal doles out 1m/- for kid’s kitty
Former Vice-President Dr Mohamed Gharib Bilal has urged various stakeholders to join hands in supporting schools that provide education to the children with special needs in the face of “too expensive” teaching facilities.
He also urged the government and the private sector to create job opportunities for people with special needs, including those suffering from autism -- who have since trained at various schools across the country to enable them to live normal lives -- like everyone else.
Dr Bilal made the remarks in Dar es Salaam yesterday during celebrations to mark the annual World Autism Awareness Day which was organized by Community of Khoja Shia Ithna- Asheri Jamat Dar es Salaam (KSIJ) at the Al-Muntazir School with a slogan ‘Protect them and Love them’.
In opening the door to support the Al-Muntazir that provides education for children with special needs, especially autism, Dr Bilal contributed one million shillings cash and said the Vice- President, Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan, had also pledged to contribute 5m/- to support to the school.
He said that the school has been improving fast and is focusing on establishing various projects including small factories where children would have the opportunity to get employment at the end of their studies.
''I will send the message to the government and ask for support … your movement needs to improve service delivery to more children because many children with such problems are still at home … they’re missing their right to education that other children enjoy.”
The Former VP added this would help parents with such children to send them to school instead of sheltering indoors, and insisted that stakeholders should support the efforts of the schools – because “it is too expensive to run the schools.”
The KSIJ Board Chairman and all Al-Muntazir Schools, Imtiaz Lalji, said that their Amsen School that provides special training for people with special needs has succeeded in teaching 80 children using special equipment with qualified teachers.
He said the school now seeks to ensure it meets the expectations of these children such as “employment without constraint … and without discrimination.” Mr Lalji further asked the government to help them get grants from various organizations to advance their efforts at improving education for the children.
''In our Al-Muntazir Schools there are more than 4,500 students where we have provided more than 500 jobs for teachers and other workers to fight for the quality of our schools. We receive children with special needs ranging from 3 to 22 years old for a fee of 3m/- only while the real cost of the service is about 3.5m/-, '' he explained.
He stressed that if the children with autism were given education, they could also become independent and show the world that they could do what all the other normal children could do.