I had heard about a school in Endebes that catered to the needs of kids with physical and mental disabilities and today I finally had the chance to visit the school and check things out. We met with the man who is the head teacher of the children with disabilities. He told us that they have 27 students in all that attend at the school and also board there. 

Some of the classrooms. 

The dorms where the children with disabilities live.

Another shot of the dorms.

All of the children have some sort of physical disability, but not all of them have mental disabilities. It was encouraging to see a school that includes children with disabilities, but there is still a lot of progress that can be made. The children with disabilities are included in the classroom with their typically developing peers. Those who can keep up with the rest of the class do and the ones who struggle are just left behind. The head teacher showed me the workbook of one of the students, Pauline, and said she just sits here and scribbles all day. 

Pauline

The class sizes at this school are pretty big and there is not room in the budget to give these kids more one on one help that they could benefit from. We got to walk through a few of the classrooms and meet a few of the kids. 

Baraca, which means blessing, with his classmates

Me greeting the students in fourth grade

Even those this children are included they are still stigmatized. The head teacher pointed out every student who has a disability in each class that we went into. He even asked these two girls to get out of their seats and into their wheelchairs and they were not happy about being singled out. 

Keep these children and other's like them living all over Kenya, who aren't lucky enough to attend school in your prayers. They also had some interesting HIV/AIDS awareness signs posted all over this elementary school. Enjoy!