Education for Children with Disabilities in Kabul

According to Handicap International, about 200,000 children in Afghanistan are affected by at least one type of disability (physical, sensorial, or mental). The founder of the school for children with disabilities located in Kabul, Parwin Azimi (an expert of sign and Brail language, and the author of Afghanistan’s sign dictionary) mentioned that over 75% of children with disabilities do not attend school. Lack of awareness and support at the country’s decision-making level has lead to minimal infrastructure at health centres or schools for children with disabilities.  

Action for development is proud of its collaboration with the school for children with disabilities, where it supports education programmes for nearly 650 children with hearing impairment. In accordance with our organization’s goal of “healthy families, empowered communities”, we have provided food for the children and their families as an incentive to allowing children to attend the school. Nutrition is one of the biggest concerns amongst poor families. Statistics show that, in 2018, over 54% of the Afghani population lived under the poverty line. Therefore, providing food items is vital to the implementation of the school programmes in support of children with disabilities. At AfD we want to ensure that children with disabilities and their families are offered support and access to basic rights.

A message from Parween Azimi, Founder of the school for children with disabilities:

“The students in our school learn how to use sign language and to communicate with their hands. The fact that people in the community are unable to use sign language, motivates the pupils to attend our school, since they can be in a place where they can be understood and understand others.

With a vocational training, children learn the necessary skills to become self-reliant in the future. It is difficult for persons with disabilities to find employment, even when having knowledge of English or computer science. Many organizations do not trust them because of their disability, in this particular case hearing loss. It is important for us to raise awareness among the community that young adults with disabilities can be capable of assuming regular job roles.

In the next 20 years, we should aim at giving all children of Afghanistan access to education”. 

Fighting for the Right to be understood

The current situation of education in Afghanistan is crucial, according to a survey by UNICEF 3,5 million children remain out of school and 2.7 million of them are girls. In 2010, another survey from Education Road map identified twelve groups of vulnerable children aged of 7 to 18 years old, including street working children, child soldier etc… Actually, the most vulnerable group amongst them was children with disabilities.

In 2005, we notified 2.8 million disabled people in Afghanistan, 96,000 of them are children whom haven’t access to school. They include children with hearing impairment, sight problem, physical impairment, development impairment etc. The disabled people are living in total isolation from society due to lack of communication and comprehension. Parents also are not capable to deal with these problems due to lack of awareness and poverty. 

In 2001, the Afghan National Association of Deaf was created to fight for the Right of Deaf people in all aspect of life, education, health, employment, advocacy …Today, disabled children, from very poor families in Kabul, have a structure to welcome them every day to attend lessons from preschool to secondary and high school level education. The school provides them basic education including braille and sign language, as well as food and transportation for children with various types of disabilities.

« It shouldn't matter how slowly a child learns as long as we are encouraging them not to stop » - we admire this quote of Robert John Meehan becuase it enourages us to continue our efforts and assistance to the children with disabilities to further improve their level of knowledge and prospects for their future.

Our school keeps expanding. During the schooling year of 2018, over 650 children received education at this school (where as initially there were about 400 students).  At the end of the year, 70% of our students obtained a maximum score in their semester-end examinations, leaving the teachers and educators proud and satisfied with the outcomes. During the winter season the school remained closed - as we cannot warm the classrooms. However, we are looking forward towards the new schooling year which will be starting on 21st March 2019. 

In addition of the successful school for disabled children, the Afghan National Association of Deaf are developing projects to reinforce the integration of people with disabilities in the active society through Capacity Building, including vocational training after graduation from school, English and computer classes.  

We are happy to annouce that the current dictionary of sign language was elaborated by the national committee for sign language, mainly by the school Founder and Coordinator - Ms Parween Nizami. The dictionary that was created about 20 years ago has been further improved and now it includes over 6000 words. The new edition of dictionary is ready to be printed – but still we are looking for some financial support necessary to launch the printing. 

Your contributions to the school and education for disabled children will help about 650 children to overcome isolation and depression. Your support will enable them to have smiles on their faces and overcome the difficulties and burden of  silence towards which they are exposed for their whole life.

We greatly appreciate your continuous support to the disabled children in Afghanistan.

Warm wishes,