90% of students with disabilities in Kenya do not receive adapted education. A singer has opened an inclusive school in Kabondo village to end the stigma.

Baba Gurston would have liked to have a teacher who understood what running is like for someone who can't walk. One who would whisper lessons to the ears that have trouble listening. Actually, Baba Gurston would have liked to have a teacher. They didn't let him go to school until he was ten years old. “My muscles were too weak to move.” A genetic disability disrupted his steps: his arms were longer than his legs. That, in a village of farmers who grow corn on the hills overlooking Lake Victoria, in the fertile Kenya that is almost Uganda, is worse than a plague. Even worse than a curse.

“People with disabilities are the most disadvantaged and marginalized group, those who suffer the most discrimination at all levels of society: a complex network of economic and social problems, including gender inequality, create educational, social and economic barriers. Therefore, a disproportionate number of children and adults with special needs cannot access adequate education and are illiterate,” summarizes a report from the Kenyan Government itself.

More than 750,000 young people with disabilities of school age, only 45,000 (6%) are enrolled in school and only 2% are enrolled in programs adapted to their needs. This means that around 90% of children with disabilities either remain outside the educational system or go to centers without the capacity to care for them . Beyond the numbers, they are young people like Byron who say goodbye to their siblings every morning before going to school. school. For them there are no blackboards or English classes, only silent walls with which to hide them from the world. Having blindness, albinism or autism spectrum disorder is a safe passage to marginality. “Families feel stigmatized and are afraid to show the child in public,” say government experts .

“People with disabilities, especially children, live in hostile environments where their safety is compromised and their future is in danger. “They remain marginalized and without the opportunity to advance, without a voice as a result of prejudice, violence and social abuse,” the government report concludes.

In the four classrooms built where two years ago there were only grasses, there is no possible distinction. Here all students are equal. He who has a debased body or he who is blind. At Baba Gurston's school there is only one motto: Disability is not inability . “As strange as it may seem, inclusive education mainly benefits children who do not have any type of disability, and not only because of all the values it promotes but because they learn to feel part of a group, recognizing capabilities within all our disabilities, an aspect key to growing in the world of work by forming teams,” says Ramos.

“People believe that people with disabilities don't have talents, but that's not true, they do,” says Gurston. At the age of 17 he went to Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa, the nameless city immortalized by Hollywood in The Constant Gardener . There he met others like him. Artists . With the help of Kibera Creative Arts, he launched a group in which dancers with some type of disability were the stars. It was his first success. Enough to alleviate a hard life: in Kibera there are no lives that are not hard. “For me the worst thing was the distance I had to walk every day: it was almost an hour and a half and that is a lot for me,” says Baba, —Why did you decide to return? —A friend convinced me. I didn't like the idea of being a teacher, but we started talking about educating young children...

“We don't want children with disabilities to grow up apart, to be told they are special. There is no one special! We want them to be like everyone else. The main reason why discrimination exists is because they separate us, they hide the children and that generates rejection. If children grow up among equals, they recognize themselves in them, they recognize that they can also be seen as different: this is how they become one more,” he explains.

“There is nothing better to enhance the development of a child than with the support of the group-class, children who are aware that we all have difficulties that with the help of others are less difficulties,” Ramos agrees.

In just one year, the school in which everything is learned through music has achieved a lot. There are still challenges: expanding the classes, getting a van to pick up the little ones who live further away and funds to start a dining room, but the first step has already been taken. After learning to walk, you can only run.

Text adapted by Cristina Oroz Bajo Source: https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/07/09/planeta_futuro/1531151350_136446.html