Ramota Abass is the Director of Glamour Special School, an institution she established in 2017 to attend to persons with special needs including Autism, Down-Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy. She studied History at the Lagos State University (LASU), Religious Studies at Ogun State University and holds certifications in Special Education. In this interview with JOY NGWOLO, she says having a child with special needs is not as chaotic as it seems. She also provides the way out for such persons and their parents.
What prompted you to set up Glamour Special needs school?
What motivated me to set up this school is the experience I had with two of my children who are also living with special conditions. It cost me a lot to get experts to take care of them but it paid it off eventually as their condition has greatly improved, especially my first child. When I discovered what was going on with him, I sought help immediately, now he is so good that it is hard to tell that he even has such a condition. After my doctor observed how well I took care of my children, he suggested that I start a school for people with special needs.
Some parents don’t know what to do when they find their children in such conditions, some even get fed up with them to the extent of locking them up at home. So, when they bring their children here, we use our professional experience to guide them on how to handle the children. To douse their frustration, we explain to them that the children are God’s gifts and there is no need for them to feel bad. We admit the children and begin to take care of them, hence, their parents feel relieved and are able to go about their day’s activities. When parents fail to address the matter early enough, it may lead to extreme cases like deformity. There is a case of a child whose mother locked him up for 15 years and his situation has worsened. Now, we have to carry out a surgery on him which will cost much. We are looking for good-hearted Nigerians to come to the aid of these children so that we can be of help to them because some of their parents are not buoyant.
How do you hire your staff?
They are all trained in Special education and they understand how to relate with the children. I employ them from Federal College of Education, Oyo and some special training schools like the Occupational Therapy school, Yaba. After they are hired, we equip them with further training. If we hire people with little or no knowledge of Special education, they will not be able to cope with the children, they will get fed up easily because the children are very sensitive and require love, care and patience otherwise they become aggressive. The teachers do a lot for them, beyond teaching, they train them to take care of themselves, wash up and eat.
Is there hope for people with special needs to live normal lives?
If there is early intervention, the child is more likely to improve compared to when the child is abandoned at a tender age. There is a student here, who when he was brought, the parents were afraid to leave him with us and we had to assure them that we could take care of him. When they came back, they were surprised to see that he had changed positively because one thing about people with special needs is that when they come in contact with people that care for and understand them, they change. We don’t give them much, what we give them is love because some of them do not experience love, even some parents are ashamed to display them in public which not be so.
There are people living with disabilities who are still doing well in their careers for instance, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg lives with autism yet he is outstanding.
Have you faced any stigma as a result of setting up this school?
Of course, in Nigeria you face a lot of stigma for even being a parent of a special child not to talk of owning a special needs school.
Parents of special children face a lot of stigma and that is why they don’t disclose the condition early enough. People say a lot of mean things like the parents used their children for money ritual and they are all false.
How many students do you have in the school presently?
We have 40 students but some of them are not regular to school. We run boarding and day school, so sometimes when the day students have crises, they may not be able to come to school.
How affordable is your tuition fee?
It is very affordable. Although we would have loved to have people sponsor them so that we can pay the teachers’ salaries but now we pay a lot of bills; we have to pay for our space, their feeding which has to be very healthy, even the school fees is not enough to cater for all those expenses.
How do you ensure that your school has a conducive learning environment for people with special needs?
I know what should be in the classroom to make it conducive because I have had a lot of exposure in the educational field. For instance, they need a lot of space so that they don’t feel overcrowded and we try our best to provide that. Also, the kind of desks the students use here are different, they are in a round table form which makes collective learning and interaction easier. We use a lot of standard equipment that aid learning and healing for special needs students. I have visited other special schools to see how they are run, they inspired me to put different ideas together and make mine better.
What vocational skills do you train them with?
We take them on skills like tailoring, hairdressing, Bead making and for some, soap-making. The soap-making is reserved for those that understand safety measures. Meanwhile, there is also music and dance because they love to dance.
What kind of curriculum do you employ in teaching them?
It is a mixture of regular and special education.
Under the regular curriculum, we teach them basics like Mathematics and English and we also categorise the students based on their learning capability and teach them with a Special education curriculum.
What is the duration of training and where do they go from here?
We cannot ascertain how long it will take a student to be stable but as soon as they are able to acquire a skill, we consider them fit to work. We liaise with government so that after their training, they get jobs because it is stated in the Nigerian constitution that every organisation should employ at least two persons living with disability.
What are the challenges you face running this school?
A lot of parents do not understand the peculiarities of the condition of their children, hence they don’t know how best to treat them.
Some feel that their children’s’ condition was inflicted by a third party maybe from their village or somewhere and so they don’t address the conditions as they ought to. Also, there are some parents that cannot afford the fees, that is a challenge for us because we have a lot of bills to pay.
What is your advice for those who wish to establish a special needs school?
They should do it with the mindset that they are trying to solve problems. They should also hire trained staff, they shouldn’t be focused on money and they should always be available to monitor activities in the school to ensure that children are well taken care of.
What is your projection for Special Education in Nigeria?
I believe that if the government and the society work hand in hand, there is so much that could be achieved. Government should encourage owners of special needs schools by granting them financial support, the society should also be enlightened to stop the stigma against people living with disabilities and their parents. In this way, we can lift the burdens off their shoulders and put smiles on their faces.
