23% of Cameroon children have at least a disability - UNICEF

At a school in Yaoundé where disabled children learn side-by-side with other pupils, eliminating discrimination is seen as a human rights imperative.

At dizzying speed, Julien sticks a hole-punch tool into a piece of paper, over and over. When the 12-year-old is done, the teacher gives the paper to another student and asks him to read it. Julien nods approvingly as the other boy reads aloud. It is exactly as he had written it, punching out the text in braille.

Julien, who is blind, and the other student, who is not, both share a classroom in the Promhandicam school in the Mimboman district of Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon.

The school opened in 1975 as part of a private philanthropy project set up by Daniel de Rouffignac, a retired French colonel. It has 120 pupils and aims to help disabled children participate fully in society, and to educate children who are blind or have impaired vision.

About half of the pupils have disabilities. Of these, many are blind, but there are others who have paralysis or learning disabilities, or have lost limbs. They study alongside children with no disabilities. Everyone learns to read braille.

For the school’s manager, Father Sergio Janeselli, this integration is key.

“You see?” he says, pointing to the children playing together on breaktime. “One of the greatest things about this kind of education is that children just play with each other no matter if they are blind, disabled, or not.”

About 2 million of Cameroon’s 23-million strong population are disabled, according to Marta Imamura, a medical officer specialising in disability and rehabilitation at the World Health Organisation in Switzerland.

The UN’s children agency, Unicef, estimates that 23% of children aged between two and nine in Cameroon have at least one type of disability, and 65% of children acquired their disabilities through illnesses, such as polio, malaria, leprosy or measles.

The most recent World Report on Disability, published by the WHO in 2011, noted that “children with disabilities are less likely to start school than their peers without disabilities, and have lower rates of staying and being promoted in schools”.

About 80% of disabled people, including 150 million children, live in developing countries. The 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been ratified by 36 African countries. However, in countries grappling with hunger and poverty, stigma and discrimination – even by parents – often renders disabled children effectively invisible.

In poorer communities, this ostracisation can condemn children with mental or physical disabilities to a life in limbo, with no prospects for therapy and an increasing likelihood of being malnourished and otherwise neglected.

“Current attitudes of rejection and neglect reinforce the many barriers these children face in daily life, including discrimination, direct abuse and violence,” says Imamura.

“There has actually not been very much research done in these areas,” says Lynn Cockburn, assistant professor in the department of occupational science and occupational therapy at the University of Toronto. “We are just beginning to really understand the extent and details of the situation.

“There are very few schools that can adequately accommodate children with visual and hearing impairments, or with significant learning disabilities. There are almost no assistive devices and technologies used in schools to allow for such accommodations,” she said.

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In 2010, Cameroon’s ministry of social affairs introduced a law to protect and promote disabled children, but activists say implementation has been slow.

In Promhandicam the letter of the law – integrating disabled people into society – is brought to life. The school’s ethos is spelled out on a big poster: “In the classroom, we are all equal in rights and obligations”.

Class groups at the school are usually organised by age, as in any other institution, but there are some exceptions to meet specific requirements.

Landry, 15, sits with a group of five-year-olds. He, like them, is learning to write. But while they struggle to hold pens between their little fingers, Landry is learning how to write with his mouth because his arms are paralysed.

Monique Hendje, a teacher, is helping him. She scribbles letters on to a small blackboard and then Landry copies them on to paper, using a carpenter’s flat pencil.

As well as catering for children with physical challenges, such as Julien and Landry, Promhandicam also educates children with learning disabilities. Older children, who may no longer be able to benefit from academic teaching, are taught other skills.

“The 25 pupils in this class are not able to learn how to write or read any more, so we teach them how to become independent by doing some handicrafts that can be sold later,” says Rachel Bekono, a teacher.

School for disabled children in Yaounde Facebook Twitter Pinterest A pupil at Promhandicam school in Yaoundé’s Mimboman district. Photograph: Juanjo Pérez One of Promhandicam’s strengths is its ability to produce tailored learning materials for its diverse range of students.

Benjamin Mbelle, armed with patience and a noisy printing machine, copies every textbook into braille. This means every student can follow each class.

The school opened a rehabilitation centre in 2005 and there is also a small workshop. There, Joseph Amougou, who himself is disabled, works at the school making prostheses or adapting furniture to the pupils’ specific needs.

Next to his workbench there are broken tricycles and wheelchairs, and many kinds of artificial limbs, including Amougou’s own.

Amougou embodies Promhandicam’s devotion to integrating disabled people as fully as possible into society. Cockburn says this is a human rights issue.

“Attitudes can have an impact because children are not given opportunities to engage in everyday activities because parents and others don’t think they can … The charity model is still very prevalent, rather than a human rights model,” she says.

Amougou is well aware of the importance of his job.

“[This is] how we can prove that there are real options and that being disabled doesn’t mean being non-capable,” he says.