#ThisAbilityMatters is a co-created campaign with Save The Children India that aims to push the discourse on the need for self-reliance and independence of India’s disabled children.
\n\n\n\nThe first day I walked into Save The Children India in BKC, Mumbai, I wondered what it would be like to be on the same campus as a school for children with disability. I’d never worked with people with disabilities before, and I had a few kindly thoughts in my head regarding the special school; thoughts that over the past four months have rearranged themselves to form a much more realistic narrative about a childhood in which disability plays a role.
\n\n\n\n- Children with hearing impairments will be quiet, I thought.
But\nthey’re not! They use sounds – laughter, annoyance, sorrow – and signs. So the\nschool is full of a different kind of sound. They stand around in the corridors\nduring recess pulling each other’s legs, gossiping about each other or their\nteachers, playing games. Before school they play, organize small games for the\nyounger children and sometimes slump down half asleep – clearly the day is\ngoing to be spent drowsing in class for some! Let’s be honest we’ve all had\nthose days and some of us still do!
\n\n\n\n- Children\nwith disability are kind to each other.
Hah!\nThey’re children! Sometimes they’re kind to each other. Sometimes they shove\neach other. Sometimes there’s bullying.
\n\n\n\nOne\ntime, a child who also has an intellectual disability simply stopped on the\nstairs while going up to class after assembly. The children behind him waited.\nAnd waited. Chatted with each other. Then the child just behind him gave him a\nshove – go on! This child simply became even more still on the stairs. Refusing\nto move. There was a commotion further down the line with shoving and pushing\nand somewhat rude comments.
\n\n\n\nIn\na minute another child from the back of the line came forward and just moved\nthe line around the child who was still on the stairs.
\n\n\n\nThe\nteacher soon arrived and allowed the child time to decide what he wanted to do.\n
\n\n\n\nAnother\ntime I found two adolescent girls in a vehement discussion – clearly annoyed\nwith each other. There was some shoving involved. Other children stepped in and\nbroke it up.
\n\n\n\nMoral\nof the story – as with all groups of children, here too there’s all kinds of\nchildhood behaviours. To expect otherwise is to reduce these children to their\ndisability and deny them their right to being children.
\n\n\n\n- Parents\nof children with disability struggle to cope with them.
Yes,\nthey do. But again that’s only one part of the narrative. Parents invest in\nsmall and beautiful ways in their children – spending a whole school day with\nthe younger ones for instance, learning how to enable them to participate in a\nworld of speech and language through an Aural Oral Communication Programme. Or\ntaking the older ones to the local hairdresser to have their hair streaked. Or\nbraiding their daughter’s hair carefully and elaborately on a special occasion.\nAnd yes, they often comment on the challenge they face especially to have their\nchild socialize in family and neighbourhood gatherings. But more than that,\nthey enjoy their children; play with them; scold them; cuddle them. Why on\nearth would I expect it to be any different!
\n\n\n\n- Children\nwith disability are natural artists.
You\nknow what – many of them are as much artists as I am. And that’s not saying\nmuch at all! No. Those with disabilities are not ‘naturally’ given to\n‘alternative occupations’. Many of them are very interested in Maths, in\nlanguages or science. Many have academic aspirations. Some are really good at drawing. Others are\nsimply trying to find their interest and talent the same as I was, at that age.\n
\n\n\n\n- Children\nwith disability need kindness.
Yes. They do. As do all children. But they also need stimulation – games, music, competition, science exhibitions, maths kits….the same kind of holistic focus that we’re arguing is necessary in mainstream schooling. Part of our challenge is that we’re simply not investing enough in their intellectual growth – they’re curious and wanting to learn more. We need to step up.
\n\n\n\nMy main takeaway from my own experience and observation is this – that even the most well-meaning among us tends to be reductive about children who have disability. The child becomes the ‘deaf child’, the ‘slow child’, and sometimes even the ‘thick child’. There is fear in engaging with them as they approach puberty and develop sexual preferences – as though it is distasteful for them to have sexual urges or fantasies as they grow through adolescence. And there is a reluctance to scold, and a cringing when we see someone else scold, a child with disability.
\n\n\n\nWhy?
\n\n\n\nI’m teaching myself to see beyond the hearing impairment and the intellectual disability. To respect each child’s individuality. To engage in conversation. To ask questions. To join them in play sessions. And to confess that I can’t draw to save my life and watch them confess as well, before we turn to admire the work of their drawing teacher.
\n\n\n\nLeher is a child rights organization working to make child protection a shared responsibility. We envision a society where caring families, alert communities, and responsive governments come together to ensure the rights and protection of all children.
To read all our blogs click here & to read all our campaigns click here.
