New school brings children with disabilities out of their homes

Elyor is 11 years old, but his stunted growth - the result of polyathritis - makes him look half that. He is busy working with modelling clay at a new school in the Uzbek city of Angren, 80 km southeast of the capital, Tashkent. Depending on the type and severity of disability they have, many children can be educated at home or can attend one of the 82 schools across the country, designed for young people with special needs. But such facilities are insufficient to meet the educational needs of the more than 40,000 children in the country who have a disability. An estimated 40 percent of children living with disabilities in Uzbekistan receive no education at all. The Angren Sunday School project is designed to reach some of the 1,000 such young people in the city, most of whom spend their days isolated at home. “The project gives an opportunity to those children who spend nearly all their lives inside the home. It’s not just about books here, these children [with serious disabilities] learn many social skills too,” said Albina Belevich, the coordinator of the project. Some of the older children at the school, that is supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), are busy working at sewing machines. Naroza is 14 and has a mild form of Down’s Syndrome. She hopes the school will provide here with skills she can use to make a living. “Life is difficult for her, but if she can run her own small business making clothes, then she has a future,” her mother said. Part of the problem in Uzbekistan is tackling prejudice against those with disabilities. Strong stigma keeps many such people locked away in institutions or inside the home. The new school is tackling this by sending out teams of volunteers to meet families with a disabled member and persuade them to allow the child to attend the school. “Apart from funding, our biggest challenge is to change attitudes towards people with disabilities. The era of such people being kept away from society is over and we are doing what we can here to show the disabled can be integrated,” Angren’s deputy mayor Nargiza Nazarova, who is closely involved in the Sunday School, said. The school also allows space for families with disabled children to meet and discuss issues as well as to spend time with their relatives. “Parents [of disabled children] are isolated too, but this school provides an environment where they can get help and support,” Nazarova said. The school currently operates only one day per week and caters for about 30 children. The Ministry of Education is interested in creating more such educational institutions in other parts of Uzbekistan, given the success of the Angren experiment.