Olawale Ajimotokan
The Ize Theraphy Vocational Centre has organised a seminar to enable parents understand and cope with challenges encountered by children with autism, blindness, Down Syndrome, Dyslexia, Cerebral Palsy, hearing problems and psychological challenges. It is a centre in Gwarimpa, Abuja, with boarding facilities, where the children with special needs can be offered vocational skills. The centre is founded by Aishat Ize Jatau, with the vision and desire to cater for the individuals with special needs.
Aishat Ize suffered a visual loss six years ago. Her desire to regain her vision was futile in spite of the best medical interventions in Nigeria, India, USA and Thailand. But with family support, she set up Ize Centre to help people with special needs improve their lives and see their disability as ability to seek and acquire more knowledge.
“One day, six years ago, I woke up with severe headache. I thought the pain would go away. But it did not and I had to go to the hospital. The pain still did not subside. Two weeks into the complaint, my vision started to deteriorate. I went to Federal Medical Centre, Lokoja, for medical intervention. When I got there, the ophthalmologist referred me to the National Hospital in Abuja, where I was admitted for over a month, but the vision did not improve prompting my family to decide to bring me to India, where I had a surgery. But the vision really did not improve. One month later, I went to the U.S. and later Bangkok, but the vision did not improve. I felt devastated losing my sight, but I had to speak to myself that I must move on with my life. My family got me a teacher and we came up with the idea of the vocational centre,” Aishat said.
She bemoaned the inadequacy of vocational establishments in Abuja to attend to people with special needs and improve their lives. She appealed to corporate bodies and NGOs to help support the centre to become bigger and better for the people with special needs. er father, Jatau Badams, said he backed the initiative so that her daughter can live a normal life and also support others in the same situation.
Badams also appealed to parents who have kids that are challenged to be courageous.
He advised them to do their best for their children if they have the means, so that at the end of the day, their disability will also allow them put their best for the country.
He also condemned the stigmatisation and discrimination in work places against people with physical challenges. Badams pleaded that people with special needs be made to feel they are part of the society.
The centre’s administrator, Mrs. Mildred Abimbola, said it is open for children from the age of 10. Abimbola, who specialises in psychiatry, said they train the children about how to lay their beds, go to the bathroom, how to take their bathe, how to cook and how to eat. She said focus on vocational skills like bead making and tailoring.
“Some of them don’t even know how to express themselves, a psychiatric client can express themselves, but most children with special needs can’t express themselves, verbally. They need people around them, they need love. You need to understand somebody that can’t speak. So it takes patience and love to be able to see the signs and all that. So I actually advise the parents not hide them,†Abimbola said.
