A joint project between Powerful Information, Vision for the Blind and Children in Crisis has just been completed.

We have been gathering data of the numbers of children with disabilities (CWD) in selected chiefdoms in the Kambia District of Sierra Leone.

We also wanted to understand something of the quality of their lives and the barriers that prevent them from getting an education. There are currently no statistics and very little information about this.

We focused on three Chiefdoms and looked in particular at children with serious physical disabilities ─ disfigurement, damaged or paralysed limbs, hearing-impairment, sight-impairment and blindness.

During the survey, teams from Vision for the Blind carried out 553 interviews in 155 villages.

A full report of the findings from this joint project will be available in early 2012.

In the meantime, here's a glimpse into the survey's findings:

• 1.5 – 2% of the children and young people in the chiefdoms we studied have some form of disability; 50% were physically-challenged, the rest were blind or visually-impaired or suffered from hearing-impairment; a small number had epilepsy or were mentally-challenged;

• 60% of the CWD were born with their disability; the rest became disabled as a result of untreated illnesses or an accident; and 60% had not had any form of treatment for their disability (other than treatment with native herbs);

• as a result of their disability 25% of the children were not able to move around the house; 45% could not bath or dress alone; some were very isolated;

• 60% of the CWD who were of school age were not attending school; 40% were ‘left alone in the house’ during the day;

• 60% of the children found the aspect of the their life that they found most difficult to deal with was ‘medication’; when asked what would help them most, 80% said ‘education’, and the rest, more ‘parental attention’ or ‘friends accepting me’;

• the three main obstacles to CWD getting an education were 1) poor parental care; 2) negative public attitudes towards disability; and 3) lack of special schools or adequate skills in schools;

• 35% of villages have customary laws or local bye laws designed to protect CWD, and chiefs said that they impose fines on people who abuse or provoke CWD

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