The Greenhouse Preschool in the Kibera slum, Nairobi, Kenya. The school aims to improve the quality of life for disabled children in the neighbourhood. Photo courtesy Deaf Aid

Patrick teaches at the Greenhouse Pre-School in Kibera. Tucked into a sunny courtyard, the school is not typically representative of Kibera, the largest slum in the world and often used to represent Kenya’s “darker” side.

The 25 students Patrick teaches are deaf. While they might be silenced to the busy noise of the surrounding city, as I enter the school grounds, one can immediately tell their determination and curiosity through a flurry of questions articulated in sign language.

The school, founded by Deaf Aid, a Norwegian-funded non-governmental organization working with deaf children in the country, was opened in 2006. What appears to be the only institution like this in the region, Greenhouse takes in deaf children of all ages and backgrounds and help them work through all standard kindergarten material, including English, kiSwahili, math and sign language.

In Kenya, special needs children are often seen as ‘bad omens.’ Children are sometimes left locked up their houses, ostracized from the world around them. A 2007 report claims that approximately three million people with disabilities, which includes deaf individuals, in Kenya are also having their rights violated through limited access to employment, wage inequity, sexual harassment and theft.

Shiro Muiruri, who works in early childhood education/development, tells the story of one little girl who was locked in her house day after day as her parents left for work. The neighbor would come over and rape the child. The girl, unable to communicate with her parents, was left in this desperate situation for years. Eventually, she was introduced to Deaf Aid. She has now learned sign language and can express what she went through.

The school focuses on early childhood education. This type of “pre-school” education we might take for granted in Canada is key to the proper development of the child and his or hers success in primary school. Up until now, there existed few options for parents who wanted to prepare their deaf children for future education, particularly for families living in poor areas like Kibera. The Greenhouse program, which hopes to provide primary and secondary schooling in another region, Kisii, is filling this gap.

Deaf Aid pays for most of the costs of the 300 children under its care. A portion of these children, the 25 at Greenhouse, pay nothing at all and are given pre-school training while the others are sponsored in primary and secondary schools, both integrated and for deaf children only, around the country. These “integrated” schools are generally government owned and operate alongside “mainstream” education by providing special needs students with extra attention while ensuring they remain a part of the regular system.

In order to reach out to the parents of deaf children, and ensure that the mentality of deaf children as “useless” is eradicated, Deaf Aid also teaches parents sign language every Saturday afternoon. As many of these parents come from very poor backgrounds, Deaf Aid also offers lunch money and bus fare to the Greenhouse parents – primarily from the Kibera, Kawangware and Mukuru slums – to learn new “life skills” such as tailoring, hairdressing and knitting. During the holidays, the school hosts open classes which bring together deaf children and their hearing siblings. By November, Deaf Aid also hope to host a mobile “hearing clinic” to target Kibera and rural areas outside Nairobi. This will help ensure that diseases causing deafness are caught early and that deaf children are given the necessary treatment.

Despite these projects, the situation for specials needs children in general in Kenya continues to look bleak. According to the Ministry of Education Science and Technology in Kenya, in 2004 there were 750,000 special needs children at primary school going age with only 26,000 enrolled. The government has reaffirmed its objective to help integrate special needs education and OVCs into the mainstream educational system through its “Education for All” initiative launched in 2003. However, these children continue to remain marginalized.

There are many barriers to integrating special needs education. One notable challenge is cost. An article from IPS News highlights that: “The cost of educating a child in a private institution that caters for special needs ranges from about 192 to 641 dollars per term – a considerable expense in a country where, according to the United Nations Human Development Report for 2003, about 23 percent of people live on less than a dollar a day.” As stated in a report for the Commonwealth Education Fund, “low enrolment [of special needs children] has been caused by high costs of providing adequately trained teachers and other support personnel, specialized equipment and instructional materials.”

The Greenhouse pre-school model, as well as its expansion to primary and secondary school classes, offers both good and bad. While the cost of enrolling children in the school is high, Deaf Aid promises to cover most of the children’s costs. However, it also makes for a potentially unsustainable model that is not fully government-supported and therefore more difficult to mainstream in the long run. Second of all, while schools like Greenhouse offer targeted, high quality education to deaf children – and in the long run ensure that their disability turns into an ability – they also separate these children from the “mainstream,” which could reinforce existing stereotypes.

Yet, Patrick’s story — of growing up deaf in Kenya and of now being married with children — is admittedly rare, but perhaps will increase as Deaf Aid expands its services from a pre-school to a secondary: The latter is planned to open soon in Isinya in Rift Valley Province.

What a real disabled mixed martial artist looks like, deaf warrior Matt Hamill.

This week I was preparing pitches for New Mobility Magazine‘s 2010 editorial calendar and I noticed a trend, one that would put me and my best friend on the same side of the issue in one case, but split us to the point of  epic argument in the second.

Both pitches prodded a question few in the disabled community ever confront, let alone acknowledge.  It definitely rubs people with disabilities the wrong way because it so blatantly goes against the movement towards independence and self-determination that so many have (and still) lobby for.  Hell, I was up in arms and I’m just deconstructing that feeling now, but after marinating on it, I realize (at least in certain cases) it’s absolutely the truth.

The issue at the centre of these pitches, what made them so compelling, was the idea that there really might be certain things that disabled people have no business doing, or pursuing in the first place. Things that belong to the able-bodied population for a reason and when disabled people are thrown into the mix, they could do serious harm to the overall disabled community’s credibility.

That’s right, I said it. While disabled people are breaking down barriers, there are some scenarios where they also have to take responsibility and accept their limitations.  Before you send a mob in wheelchairs with torches and pitchforks to my door, let me tell you a little about these two pitches.

The first pitch concerns a man mentioned first on this blog.  Kyle Maynard was that decorated amateur wrestler, who didn’t have arms or legs and  had his first mixed martial arts fight in April 2009. As shown in the video embedded in ThisAbility #26, it wasn’t much of a fight. It amounted to a giant game of Duck, Duck, Duck–Goose! as Maynard chased his opponent around the ring on all fours with his opponent easily dodging his grasp. His opponent didn’t fare any better.  Instead of teaching Maynard exactly why fighters need limbs, by punishing Maynard with his fists and feet, he was tentative, taking the kid-glove approach.  Fans came for a fight, but (let’s be honest) stayed for the novelty.  If Maynard wanted to prove he could give it “Ye Olde College Try,” mission accomplished. If Maynard wanted to be taken seriously as a fighter, all he did was further affirm that no matter how much people with disabilities want to be on equal footing with able-bodied people, there are certain circumstances where it’s just not going to happen, no matter how much will is in their hearts.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that disabled people can’t compete in MMA, Matt Hamill is an excellent example of a fighter with a disability who has been making legitimate waves in the UFC since he arrived, but Matt Hamill is deaf and he at least has arms and legs, thereby meeting the minimum  standard  for competition that a paying audience expects.  I have no problem with Maynard trying to push his own limits and showing what’s possible for people with disabilities, but a professional fight in front of a paying audience is not the place for it. Not only does it push a sport, that was once regarded as human cock fighting, back to being perceived as a freak show instead of  legitimate , but it also ensures that Maynard himself is never taken seriously as a fighter.  If you want to be paid, (disability or not) it’s not enough to show up and try. You have to maintain a minimum standard of expectations as a professional and if your disability makes the gap between ability and expectations too wide to overcome, then it’s your responsibility to step back and hand it off to someone who can better meet the expectations of all parties (in Maynard’s case, that’s the audience and the promoter first, with his own need to show he can do it, coming in second). Just because something is possible, doesn’t mean it’s appropriate.

Generally, people with disabilities get so defensive about this issue because they believe that accepting their limitations, therefore acknowledging that they’re never going to be on par with able-bodied people in every circumstance, is seen as a sign of weakness (Maynard wrote a memoir called No Excuses.) When, in truth, it actually strengthens the community’s argument to recognize when they’re outclassed, step back and instead, fight the battles that have higher stakes and farther-reaching consequences.

When I was a kid, my dream was to be an actor, but I realized that if acting was a slog for the waiters waiting for their agent’s phone call, then my disability would only compound the lack of opportunity. I left the inroad-making to those who could afford the risk and decided to make a potentially bigger splash for the disabled community in journalism. Meanwhile, I scratched the performing itch in amateur improv clubs. I was savvy enough to know when it was time to play the game with a different strategy. Not all activists have to go right to the wall to make a difference and, as Kyle Maynard learned, not all disabled fighters will open the minds of  fans just by showing up.

Yeah, the first pitch was pretty cut and dried. It was the second pitch when the debate got a little heated. In my opinion, the overstepping of boundaries in the next case, really wasn’t one. However, my best friend and mentor Kent Loftsgard saw it a little differently: As a person with cerebral palsy and a lifelong interest in healthcare,  he argued that in this case, an adaptation became an unfair advantage towards the doctor in question’s medical school diploma. I didn’t really think so. But if Kent was right, lives were at stake because this pitch centered around a quadriplegic doctor with a rather cushy accommodation, one that could cost his future patients their lives…

Come back early next week, to continue reading Part Two.

Aaron Broverman is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. He regularly writes about disability issues for Abilities Magazine in Canada and New Mobility Magazine in the U.S.