Government accused of neglecting special needs families in food distribution programme

Families raising children with Special Needs or disabilities have been left out in the Government’s food distribution programme for Covid-19, Mrs Ellen Affam-Dadzie, Executive Director of ‘With God Cerebral Palsy Centre,’ has said

She said many families raising children with disabilities are unable to go out and collect the cooked food because of their peculiar situation.

She said many are also not members of any organised church, making them totally left out in the management of Ghana’s Covid-19 cases.

Mrs Affam-Dadzie said this during an online discussion on the Special Mothers Project Whatsapp platform.

The Special Mothers Project is an advocacy and awareness creation programme on cerebral palsy issues and other issues affecting families raising children with special needs or disabilities.

Many of the Special Needs parents said they have exhausted all the avenues to enable them benefit from the government’s food distribution programme.

Madam Millicent Oboubi, mother of a child with cerebral palsy, said she called the number given out by the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations to no avail.

“I called the contact person for Okaikwei North, the person on the other side of the call picks the call but does not talk, and I did this several times and gave up,” she said.

Another mother said she was told to look for the nearest Methodist Church in her community to get the number of the presiding bishop but “I felt they were just trying to put me off so I just ended the call, who do I leave my child with to go in search of food?”

Another Special Needs mother said after several calls to a church in her community, they brought her cooked food which wasn’t so much needed at the time they brought it.

She added: “Besides, my son with cerebral palsy cannot eat the cooked food they brought, they brought kenkey with pepper and sardine, I would have preferred being given corn dough to prepare porridge for him.”

Mrs Hannah Awadzi, Executive Director of The Special Mothers Project, said there was the need for a coordinated effort to reach out to all special needs families who may be in critical need at this time.

She urged the government to bring the leadership of the various groups on children with special needs together and look at the best way forward to ensure families raising children with special needs are served in these unusual times.

Source: Myjoyonline.com