How special needs-friendly are we as a community? That doesn’t mean the donations we make to support organisations. Just look around you. As the expat community grows more confident of its place in the inclusive Bahrain environment, we are emboldened to showcase our diverse interests and cultural identity. That means we are establishing clubs and societies and even building premises for the same.
These buildings and premises are either built from scratch or rented and modified. Unless the premises are expressly used for recreation and rehabilitation of people with special needs, no thought is put into how to make the premises special needs-friendly.
Not long ago, I had organised a concert at a centrally-located club. The hall was spacious with economical rentals and easy to reach. However, when one of our VIP guests arrived – a person who used a wheelchair – we were embarrassed that there was no ramp from the pavement to the lift in the lobby which was about three feet above ground and only accessible by stairs. Considering that this was a newly-built building, it would have cost little to just fix a ramp.
Strangely, you wouldn’t find the same indifference for people with mobility issues in shopping malls and stores. In these spaces, where people with such issues are seen primarily as spending customers, effort is made to have a ramp over steps, extra-wide elevators and handrail-fitted toilets for special-needs customers. Its all about perspective.
The cynic in me says that if you see the person with special needs as a stakeholder and a tangible part of your life – somebody whom you can benefit from – you will reach out and include them instead of skirting their needs.
Which brings me to the critical matter of how we are dealing with the special needs of children with mental challenges. This can be anything from a vast array of conditions – autism, Down Syndrome, slow development and behaviour disorders being the most prevalent.
True to its essentially compassionate society, Bahrain embraces children with such issues without a social fuss. You can encounter parents with children exhibiting characteristics of such conditions and nobody will make the family feel awkward. However, that is not enough to give these children access to the kind of extra nurturing that they need.
Unicef statistics shows that at least 300 million children worldwide are in need of special support for challenged mental development. And, of these, a sizeable number can benefit from mixed education platforms where they learn alongside their peers who have no disabilities.
The difficult truth to face is that in Bahrain there is hardly such an inclusive environment for these children. Bahrain’s classrooms are simply not accessible to children with disabilities – instead, we are creating a separated system where even students with very mild developmental challenges are segregated.
It builds a subconscious stigma which these children will struggle to overcome in their lives. Bahrain has a fine public education system and the expat communities have a multi-layered educational platform offering everything from the Indian CBSE to UK GCSE, the International Baccalaureate and even the French syllabus. And not one of these schools have a significant programme to include children with learning challenges in their classrooms.
Let’s stop patting ourselves for small isolated centres with rehab and therapy classes. They are indeed a helping hand for families dealing with special children. But to prepare them for the world ahead, we need them to be beside us and not cordoned off.
meeraresponse@gmail.com
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