A learning disability is a lifelong challenge which cannot be cured or fixed, and that children with this condition need to be given appropriate support and intervention to achieve success in school, at work, in relationships and in the community. Besides working in the lower standards with the school children we also make home visits and train school teachers as well.
Who is Sandi Thandiza?
Sandi Thandiza is a not-for-profit organisation based in Malawi. We have a multidisciplinary approach to assist children with various learning disabilities. in government primary schools . The multidisciplinary team comprises of Physiotherapist (MSc Physio), Occupational Therapist (Dip OT & RT, Bsc OT), Speech and language Technician and Social Worker. It is the only organisation from Nairobi to Johannesburg to offer such services to children.
The Government of Malawi is very supportive of this project but have no resources to financially support us. They have identified schools where we have trained community volunteers, teachers, parents & caregivers to support children experiencing learning difficulties, prior to which they had thought the children were either lazy, naughty or just difficult.
For years, education for learners with disabilities which has been institutionalized, thereby widening the gap between persons with disability and the general society. Recently, the Malawian government has joined the rest of the world to promote inclusive education where among other children; learners with disabilities are mainstreamed into the ordinary school environment.
We were born out of the social responsibility of Sandi Rehabilitation Center which is a fee paying organisation for children with all sorts of disabilities. The Rehab center pays our rent, utilities and salaries and they also lend us their vehicle to get to the schools.
Because crowd funding does not send funds to Malawi, a member of staff of our sister organization "Kumanga" located in Germany, has agreed to accept your support and forward them here to us. in Malawi. We support Kumanga in being the link with a community 100 kms away so that they can run income generating projects, help the physically disabled and to obtain potable water.
How We Work
Once the Government has identified the school in which we should work, our therapists give each child identified by their school teacher, an in depth assessment. Thereafter they are put into an appropriate level (1 - most needy, 2 - less needy, 3 least needy). These children attend therapy sessions for 2 hours twice a week at the school in the resource room provided by the school which Sandi Thandiza has made child-friendly and provided the appropriate furniture. Progress is recorded in the child's file after each session and weekly and monthly as well as termly reports are compiled. Once the child has achieved their goals they return to the mainstream classroom. However, those children found not to have the academic abilities to get through school, complete their primary school years thus growing up with their peers, and are then referred to a vocational school so that as adults, they can become self reliant.
If.the school has been appointed with a Special Education teacher by the Government it is that teacher who always attends the therapy sessions. We encourage parents to attend therapy sessions as well as other teachers from the school too.
An extremely well qualified and experienced itinerant teacher is employed to visit each school on a motorbike to ensure that the therapy sessions are well delivered and appropriate to match each child's Individual Development Plan..
Why We do What We Do
However, learners with learning difficulties have met up with so many challenges as regards to their identity, as they are discriminated and stigmatized because of a lack of knowledgeable local leaders who oft times lack instructional learning materials, lack of accessibility to documents and negative attitude in general towards learners with learning disabilities.While some policies and strategic planning tools governing provision of inclusive education have been developed by Government over the years, these tend to be severely under-resourced or poorly managed, causing a disconnect between existing policies and the actual practice.
We plan to train 35 teachers enabling them to identify children with learning difficulties. Our therapists will then assess these children and give them an Individual Development Plan which the teachers can follow and we will monitor and advise.the teacher and child.
These children suffer a lot of stigmatization, discrimination and are ostracized because they are slow. We have found in many cases that these children learn in different ways to most children so we have through our therapists, identified their problems and have changed the ways of getting the message across and now some children come in the top 10 in classes of 100 students, where before they failed or were in the bottom 10 positions.
A laminator is very useful in keeping pictures, worksheets and documents durable, clear and long lasting for use in the therapy sessions and tools for teachers to learn from at their trainings.
In the country, very little has been done to assist learners with LDs to the extent that most of them drop out of school due to frustration and frequent failures despite their intelligence quotient (IQ) being within or above average..However, ST is unique as it is the only innovative organization offering such support in Malawi.
Success Stories
-Ottis a standard 2 boy aged 7 at Shire Urban before he was
assessed he was not doing well in class. On assessment, Ottis had a problem in
reading and writing some simple words both English and Chichewa. With the intervention
of Sandi Team working together with teachers in the therapy sessions Ottis is now
able to read, write and also his handwriting has improved. Last term (term 1
2011-2018 year), Ottis came 3rd in his class out of a total of about
60 pupils. (March 2018)
-Akuzike is 5 years old in standard 1 and level 1 in therapy sessions. She had problems with the alphabet and writing, vowels, syllable breaking, letter and word recognition, straight addition and subtraction mathematical problems and follows the instructions. There is good improvement in her performance now she is able to recite all the alphabet letters without help, she is able to count and identify numbers from 1 to 20 and she has improved other visual perceptual skills. (Sept 2018)
-Yamikani is 5 years old in standard 2 She is 5 years old in standard 2. She had problems with reciting the alphabet, spelling, maths, concentration and hand writing. There is a great improvement in her performance in therapy sessions so now she is able to recite all the alphabet letters with no help, able and is able to spell 2 to 4 letter word in Chichewa, is able to solve simple addition and subtraction sums, her hand writing has improved as well as her attention and concentration . She has graduated from therapy sessions and now is going to mainstream classroom. (Sept. 2017).
- We also work in an orphanage where the pass rate with the special needs children was 23% and now after our intervention, this year the pass rate jumped to 72%. Everyone was so happy with the results.(July 2018)
Our Team
All our therapists always include boosting the children's self-confidence and self-esteem.
Our Program Manager is responsible for monitoring & evaluation and the smooth running of the program which includes report writing and the usual other managerial responsibilities.
Our Speech & Language Technician works with children who cannot express themselves, who become very frustrated when folks don't understand them..
Our Social Worker meets teachers and parents to let them know how the program is going and offers advice . He also visits children and parents in their homes to ensure that all is well and to advise parents makes suggestion on how to enhance the learning environment.
The Special Needs Officer Helps the children with their reading, writing and math. This includes dyslexia, graphethesia, handwriting etc.
Our Occupational Therapist supports the children and focuses on Activities of daily Living, visual perceptual skills etc.
Rewards
Here is a picture made by one of our children that I could send you at no cost as a thank you for helping these children who have virtually no access to resources to improve themselves.
And here is a batik, a Malawian souvenir, that you can be rewarded with - which will cost you nothing!
Contact Us:
Email: [email protected]
Web page: sandi-thandiza.org
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