By Chris Agbo
Star Children Initiative on 1st August organized an international conference on zoom to discuss the how COVID-19 has impacted on Children with disabilities.
The CEO, Star Children Initiative, Grace Alexander in her opening speech welcomed all the participants who found time to be part of the conference in spite of their busy schedules. She said that the conference is the initiative of Star Children Initiative which is the brainchild of her son Professor who has a cognitive disability. She informed that the conference is made up of parents of children with disabilities and seasoned professionals who are working in the area of children with disabilities.
The conference was characterized with presentations and comments from professionals who are parents with children with disabilities and others.
The conference also witnessed presentation from doctors, social workers, special educationists, nutritionists and many others giving different perspectives on COVID-19 and Children with disabilities.
Kate Anolue in her comment lauded Grace Alexander for always speaking up for inclusion, saying that it is out of passion not just that she have a son with disability. Kate urges people to support children with disabilities in this time of COVID-19 because COVID-19 is challenging for others so imagine what children with disabilities would be going through.
Dr. Akindolapo Akinwande made a presentation on COVID-19 in Children with Disabilities and Heart Disease. He explained the cause of coronavirus, prevention of COVID-19in high risk children, overview of Heart Disease in Children with disabilities, how do we limit exposure, how to prevent contracting the virus, hint on the propose vaccine for prevention and treatment and the coronavirus vaccine trackers where all vaccines on COVID-19 are being tracked.
Sade Etti, spoke on when you have an autistic child, how do you cope with the lockdown?
Dotun Akande, the owner of Patrick Speech & Language Centre, Lagos spoke on the challenges of learning during COVID-19 lockdown. She said that they applied online pattern of teaching but the children were not conversant with the technology. Some parents become the teachers of their children with disabilities which posed a lot of challenges to these parents. She said that government didn’t allow them to open so they have engaged the parents and they suggested zoom and the problem was who will pay for the data. A training was put together to teach them how to use zoom. Some parents struggled. She urged the parents to let their children why we are here and the preventive measure. Teach them good living habit and encourage them on what they are good at.
Ronke Carew, a nutritionist spoke on how to boost immune system of children with disabilities
Subrena Joseph, a social worker, in her speech, said that social distance lead to loss of some support for children with disabilities from their families. Pre-COVID-19 support was lost during the COVID-19 era because there was no contingent plan on the part of the parents before COVID-19 lockdown.
Shold Alabi, an educator and learning disability expert made a presentation on support children with disabilities, encourage your child’s area of passion- Coaching, Music, Sewing, Fashion, Provide learning to suit the preferred learning style. She spoke about learning styles, visual, musical/ audible, verbal, physical/ mathematical, social and solitary.
One topic of the conference was Funmi Olagunji’s Anu, a child with disability playing saxophone which he played to the admiration of the participants.
There were comments and presentations and some questions which sparked up some conversation that informed collaborations and partnerships to reach out to indigent parents of children with disabilities.
