Let’s help all our children

A NATION should be judged by how it takes care of its vulnerable citizens.

With the triple threat of poverty, unemployment and inequality worsened by a struggling economy, unfortunately when it comes to taking care of the mentally and physically challenged, we are found wanting.

The deaths of more than 100 Life Esidimeni patients are the tip of the iceberg.

It is even more appalling that the mentally and physically challenged children of Daggakraal in Mpumalanga have been assigned a lifetime of poverty and hopelessness.

Children as old as 16 in the Mpumalanga community have never seen the inside of a classroom. In a radius of over 200km, the children, who need specialised care, are mocked and neglected as there are no schools for them.

The burden of ensuring that they get an education rests on their parents, many of whom are poor and illiterate and not equipped to face these challenges. These children have various disabilities that make performing everyday mundane tasks such as feeding themselves, bathing and dressing, as well as going to the toilet, difficult. To be able to master these self-care activities they need intense stimulation.

The shortage of special needs schools is not unique to Daggakraal.

A Human Rights Watch report states that as many as 600 000 children with disabilities were on a waiting list to be placed in classrooms in 2015. Surely, in places like SA, where the lack of schools is a problem, the state can come up with innovative ideas on how to save these children. For example, retired nurses and teachers can be called up to establish community care programmes where halls and schools can be used to alleviate this problem.

It’s time to live the values of humanity and to emulate the great Nelson Mandela when he said: “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its own children.”

Let us not confine our children to such a bleak existence.