NOA: Standing Up for Children Left Behind

Donatus Eleko

In a society where children with special needs often fall through the cracks of policy and public attention, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has emerged as an unlikely but increasingly vital ally.

Since 2023, the agency has begun refocusing part of its grassroots strategy to support and include children living with disabilities across the country and particularly in the South-West and South-South geo-political zones, where stigma and neglect often intersect with poverty and poor infrastructure.

This quiet shift has taken root in partnerships, town hall meetings, radio broadcasts, and schoolyard conversations that are powered by NOA’s vast network of Community Orientation and Mobilisation Officers (COMOs).

The turning point came on October 6, 2023, when the NOA participated in a symbolic walk to mark the International Day of Cerebral Palsy. Organised in collaboration with the Engraced Ones Prayer Support and Advocacy Initiative in Karu, Abuja, the event featured a passionate call by NOA’s Assistant Director of Special Duties, Mrs. Chinwe Ikaraoha, who urged Nigerians to end discrimination against children with disabilities.

She also announced plans to publicize the Disability Act, a crucial but underpublicized legal framework, through translations into local languages for grassroots accessibility. Though the event took place in the capital, it set the tone for a wave of regionally targeted interventions in the southern part of the country.

In early 2024, the NOA in Abia State, though geographically outside the South-West and South-South, rolled out a project that would become a model for later outreach. Partnering with The Straight Child Foundation and international NGO, MiracleFeet, the agency trained local officers across all 17 local government areas to educate communities about clubfoot, a congenital deformity that can be corrected with early intervention but is often misunderstood as a spiritual affliction.

The officers delivered practical messages about early detection and directed families to nearby treatment centres. The success of this model quickly caught the attention of NOA leadership and inspired similar grassroots campaigns in select South-South communities in the months that followed.

The takeaway was that special needs advocacy needed to be localised, demystified and delivered by trusted community actors.

Also in 2024, the NOA ramped up its school-based programming across the South-South, particularly in Rivers State, focusing on communities in Khana, Omuma, Ahoada East, and Emohua. In earlier years, NOA’s school visits focused on hygiene and drug prevention. But this time, they included messages on disability inclusion, empathy and equal access to education. Students were encouraged to write essays and deliver speeches about classmates with special needs. Teachers received refresher sessions, and parents were looped in via weekend community gatherings. This approach began to reframe disability not as a taboo but as part of everyday life.

In October 2024, the NOA deepened its focus through a strategic collaboration with UNICEF, launching Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) workshops in Edo and South-West states. The goal was to improve outcomes for children during the first 1,000 days of life, with a sharp lens on nutrition, early stimulation and early identification of developmental disabilities. At these workshops, NOA officers were trained to promote neuro-developmental screenings, champion inclusive parenting and help caregivers understand conditions like autism and speech delays. This marked the agency’s first direct foray into health-linked early childhood disability interventions.

The workshops were instrumental in preparing NOA operatives to engage better with caregivers of at-risk children, particularly in rural Osun, Oyo, and Ondo, where poverty and lack of health infrastructure often delay diagnosis.

By January 2025, NOA’s disability inclusion work had grown less experimental and more embedded in its core community engagement framework. In Edo, the agency launched the “Malaria-Free Family Pledge” campaign. Although focused on public health, the programme became a vessel for broader conversations around child vulnerability, specifically linking malaria prevention and disability outcomes in under-fives.

Simultaneously, in Delta State, community-level engagement in Ijaw and Urhobo languages began addressing misconceptions around disabilities. During family health outreach sessions, officers discussed the links between untreated childhood illnesses and later developmental challenges, including epilepsy and cerebral palsy.

From the start, the agency recognized the gatekeeping role of traditional rulers and clergy and invested in high-level advocacy across the South-West. In Akure, Ondo State, the Deji of Akure began including disability rights in his public addresses, urging parents not to hide their children and calling on community leaders to support inclusive schooling.

In Edo and Osun, church and mosque leaders began echoing similar messages. In Ibadan, the Chief Imam of Oyo State reportedly devoted two consecutive Friday sermons to the importance of protecting vulnerable children, including those with disabilities.

The faith-based approach helped reduce stigma, especially in rural communities where scientific explanations often carry less weight than spiritual interpretations.

In Lagos, the approach was different. Facing a cosmopolitan population with access to vast information, NOA launched a media campaign built around testimonials from parents of special needs children, distributed via WhatsApp groups, neighborhood radio, and local television. The stories, told in Yoruba, Pidgin and Egun, highlighted journeys of resilience, from accessing therapy to school inclusion. The goal was not just awareness but normalization, presenting disability not as tragedy but as one version of the Nigerian child’s experience.

More than a year into its expanded focus, NOA’s work is starting to yield visible change. In parts of Osun and Rivers, officers report increased public willingness to discuss disability in open forums. In Edo and Delta, there has been an uptick in families seeking referrals for clubfoot and speech delays.

Yet structural challenges remain. Therapy services are still limited, inclusive schools are few and caregivers often bear the burden alone. Importantly, though, the conversation has moved from silence to awareness and from awareness to action. While that is not everything, it is a beginning.

The NOA plans to expand its folk-story-based messaging, pioneered in malaria outreach in Osun, into disability storytelling formats that use traditional proverbs to frame inclusion. Similarly, a radio drama series on disability rights is in development for community radio stations across the South.

What the expanded focus has shown is that changing how people see children with disabilities is not a job for health professionals alone, but also for neighbours, teachers, the clergy, market women, and royal fathers.  In linking those voices across states, fields, and faiths, the NOA may just be a true grassroots movement for special needs inclusion.