At the Tubiteho Day Care Centre in central Kigali, 30 attentive
teachers, care assistants and parents listen intently to the
lecturer on the last day of an intensive training course on
psychological and educational care for children with special needs.

The focus of their attention – Silas Iyakaremye – is
a Belgium-based Rwandan psychotherapist and communication expert on
a three-month mission funded by IOM's Migration for Development in
Africa (MIDA) programme for the Great Lakes region.

"Our aim is to train staff from Tubiteho and similar centres to
ensure all children with special needs reach their full potential,"
says Iyakaremye, who has worked for over 20 years in the fields of
health, educational psychology and special needs teaching.

Tubiteho – meaning "Let's Take Care of Them" in
Kinyarwanda – was set up by Gasana Ndoba and Dr. Innocent
Gakwaya, two former members of the Belgium Rwandan diaspora, each
of whom had a special need daughter.

Gasana Ndoba, who now runs the Tubiteho Association, decided to
return home to Rwanda in 1999 after living and working in Belgium
for 22 years. But it was a difficult decision because his daughter,
Rusaro, suffers from moderate cerebral palsy. In Belgium, access to
special care and educational services was readily available, but in
Rwanda special needs centres were very scarce.

Gasana eventually found a centre outside Kigali where Rusaro
could be taken care of, but it turned out to be too far from their
family home, so he decided to try to set up a new facility in
Kigali with the help of Dr. Innocent Gakwaya.

Together they managed to raise 2 million Rwandan Francs (USD
4,000) from other parents of children with special needs and
various NGOs, including the Irish development organization
Trocaire, to open the Tubiteho Centre in October 2005.

Today Tubiteho is run entirely through parental contributions
and only the enthusiasm and commitment of the staff compensates for
its lack of resources. It lacks physiotherapy and exercise
equipment, and has no computers and educational software to help
the children.

It also cannot admit children whose parents cannot afford to
pay, but is trying to set up a sponsorship programme with families
and centres in other countries to raise funds that will allow
non-paying children to attend.

The centre has also been actively involved in efforts to improve
the situation of the mentally disabled in Rwanda. In January 2007,
Rwanda passed its first law on the rights of the disabled but the
law focuses primarily on physical rather than mental
disability.

IOM became involved with the centre when the latter asked for
training assistance through the MIDA office at the Ministry for
Labour and Public Services in Rwanda. The IOM MIDA team in Brussels
advertised for specialist trainers and eventually selected Silas
Iyakaremye.

The NGO Handicap International then stepped in, providing
transport to allow other special needs centres in the Kigali area
to also benefit from the training programme.

Training participant Agnès Mukashyaka set up the Izere
Mubyeyi (Parents' Hope) Centre in 2002 because she was unable to
find a centre to take care of her teenage son. "Parents in Rwanda
tend to hide away children with mental disabilities because they
are often ashamed. We had to work very hard to inform parents about
how they could help their children," she says.

"We have many needs, but we did not have the know-how. This
training has taught us a lot about special needs education. If we
had known before what we know now, we could have improved many
things much earlier," says Mukashyaka, whose centre currently cares
for 72 children.

The training, which is carried out in Kinyarwanda and in French,
covers topics such as the clinical assessment of children with
handicaps, special education techniques and family outreach
practices.

Another training participant, teacher Ancilla Kayiraba, heads
the Hirwa Iwanyu ("Make Yourself at Home") Centre, which she
started to support her disabled daughter, Umutoni.

"Before Umutoni was very frustrated and marginalized. She did
not understand why she could not go to school like her siblings.
The impact of her going to the centre has been incredibly positive.
Every day she gets ready for school like the others, she is so
happy," says Kayiraba.

Therese Safari also testifies to the value of day care for her
daughter Constance who has attended the Tubiteho Day Care Centre
since 2006. "Now she is with other children and she is learning to
read and write, this gives her self-esteem," she notes.

Aline Kanobayita, who has run the Tubiteho Centre since 2005,
studied social work at university, but says that she and her staff
all need training in special education to properly care for the
children in their charge.

"Before Silas came to train us we had to train ourselves. We
would search on the Internet for solutions for the children. We
would visit other centres to see how they worked. But with this
training, things are much more structured and we can now work on a
case-by-case approach," she says.

Silas Iyakaremye welcomes the positive feedback, but admits that
much more needs to be done. "I have had so many requests to come
back, to do more training. The needs are immense and resources
limited," he says.

He points to the lack of individual assessment for each child
and the lack of diagnosis, which means that some children with
easily treatable disorders are unnecessarily excluded from
mainstream schooling.

"Correct diagnosis of conditions such as dyslexia, attention
deficit disorders, epilepsy and hearing difficulties could allow
many children to attend ordinary school. Much more needs to be done
to ensure that children are given access to the treatment they
need," he says.