GITEGA December 24th (ABP) – The managers of the centers for the care of children with disabilities have requested the intervention of the Burundi State in alleviating the burdens weighing on the said centers. They cited, among other things, teacher salaries, health care costs and the exorbitant costs of teaching aids.
Those officials sounded the alarm during the celebration of the International Day of the Disabled, held on December 22, 2021, in the urban center of Gitega, in the commune and province of Gitega (center of the country) under the theme “No to discrimination against the disabled in order to enable them to live beyond their limits”.
For the head of the Morning Star center in Mushasha, the Burundi government should pay the salaries of teachers working in centers for the disabled as it does in public schools, arguing that disabled pupils are children of the country like so many others. Speaking on health care, the head of the same center said that devices such as limb prostheses, crutches, wheelchairs or glasses for the visually impaired are expensive.
The teaching of blind or visually impaired pupils and of the deaf or hard of hearing or even deaf-mutes, requires special and very expensive teaching aids.
Thus, he made a strong appeal once again to the government of Burundi and to any charitable soul to contribute in order to meet those needs.
In addition to the above, a disabled pupil shared with the audience the problems faced by disabled people in general. He mentioned, among other things, the isolation of the disabled in the backyard as well as the infrastructure built without considering their disability, while commending the initiatives of the Burundi government for the establishment of inclusive education, the pupil in question requested the establishment of this education at the level of all communal school administrations and also to initiate inclusive education in universities.
On behalf of the legal representative of the Union of Disabled People of Burundi, Mrs. Gisèle Katihabwa, joined previous speakers to praise the government in its many initiatives to improve the living conditions of people with disabilities while wishing it to continue on this momentum, arguing that those people also contribute in the development of the country when one invests in their education.