Children with disability beat the odds to take up farming

The saying disability is not inability has never rung truer than with the pupils of a school in Mombasa for disabled children.

Over and over again, people abled differently have proven they can prosper in areas as disparate as sports, education and employment.

Now, picture a young girl who was born without the lower part of her hands. She cannot hold a pen to write or do other things that a normal person can do.

But Bahati Atieno, a pupil at Port Reitz School for the Physically Disabled, does not only take part in class activities but also does farming in the school’s farmyard.

Bahati is a member of the 4K Club. This is an agricultural forum based on the philosophy of ‘Kuungana, Kufanya, Kusaidia Kenya’ (Coming together to act in order to help Kenya).

Bahati is determined, focused and bright. She holds the jembe using part of her half upper limbs. Slowly but surely, she makes progress in digging the field to prepare a seedbed for sukuma wiki.

Mary Kiswili, the matron, is full of praise for her industry. “She is an active member of this club,” Kiswili says. “Her disability does not hinder her from taking part in our day-to-day activities. She might be slow in doing her things at the field, but eventually, she does everything perfectly.”

Kiswili, a Grade 3 teacher at the school, has been the 4K Club matron for three years. She joined the school in 2015.

INTEGRATED LEARNING

Bahati is joined in the field by Saida Ridhwani and Redge Munai. The two can only walk with the help of crutches. They cannot stand on their own without artificial aid, but they are good farmers.

Saida, a class eight pupil at the school, has only one leg, and when digging the field, one of the crutches is placed as a leg to support her.

“I have been a member of the 4K Club since class three,” she says cheerfully, as she rests the jembe on the ground to speak. She hails from Kwale county.

“Many people have neglected agriculture. They think you need acres and acres of land to become a farmer, but here we have been taught we can do kitchen gardens at the back of our houses or balcony or even do poultry and keep rabbits,” she says, with a keen sense of agricultural matters.

Kiswili, the matron, says the school has a population of about 230. Half the students are children with different disabilities — deaf, dumb, crippled, mentally challenged — but they are learning in an integrated manner with those who are normal.

The government decided to have the children learn together in an integrated manner so the children learn from each other.

“You see for example that young boy is deaf. He is slow in class, but very active when we come out here. He takes part in all the field activities and we support that,” Kiswili says.

The Port Reitz School 4K Club has 35 members drawn from class four to eight. Of the 35 members, about 20 have different physical challenges.

Kiswili explains that one of the boys, who uses a wheelchair to move around, had pulled out of the club because he thought he was not doing anything for the group.

“I talked to him and he said he felt he was out of place, but I encouraged him to continue being a member. He does not need to use a jembe, but I know the knowledge he acquires here will be beneficial in future,” she says.

At least three children are on wheelchairs but are part of the 4K Club.

NURTURE FARMING CULTURE

On this day when we visit the school, we arrive at around 4pm, after the day’s classes. We find the group on the field behind a classroom. Kiswili gIves us a tour.

“That part over there, we had planted some potatoes and cassava. We have already harvested and we are not preparing the seed beds for another season,” she says.

Jane Chuma, the Agriculture ministry field extension officer for Changamwe subcounty, says the school needs support from both the government and private entities.

“The children and their teachers are doing very good work, but they need assistance. They should have a greenhouse, irrigation kits and other agricultural equipment,” Chuma says.

She says the importance of having students learn about agriculture at a tender age is that they get to appreciate the practice in future.

“We want to make them understand farming. We are not only teaching them how to prepare fields for planting, but also about value addition for agricultural products,” Chuma says.

In an urban setting, agriculture is seen as a reserve for the rural areas. But Chuma says kitchen gardens at the balcony or even behind the house can be very useful.

“If you plant your vegetables, let’s say sukuma wiki and tomatoes at the balcony, when they are ready, you will not have to continue buying from the market. You save on the cost,” she says.

Hamisi Chondo, Agriculture field extension officer for Jomvu subcounty, says Mombasa is very arable for Amaranthus (Mchicha) growing.

“In this region, you can never go wrong with Mchicha, but many people do not like to take part in agriculture. We are now teaching these young children to understand the value of doing farming,” he says.

Chondo, who has worked as an extension officer for 36 years, says he is set to retire in June, but before then, he wants to ensure children keep taking up farming.

“In Mombasa, we can do fishing and poultry farming on large scale, but we are not seeing that happening. We need to continue inculcating the culture of farming into our children,” he says.

NUTRITION STRATEGY

The Kenya Aids NGOs Consortium (Kanco) and Scaling up Nutrition Civil Society Alliance (Sun-CSA) are supporting a nutrition programme in Mombasa.

The programme, called Pwani Lishe Bora Project, has led to the two organisations supporting the Agriculture 4K Clubs in schools in Mombasa.

Six schools have benefited, receiving seeds for farming and agricultural materials, such as sacks for kitchen gardens.

Sun-CSA programmes officer Judy Mboku says they had a meeting with the ministries of Health, Education and Agriculture to implement the project in schools.

“In school feeding programmes, in a bid to avert malnutrition, we expect them to have vegetables with the ugali being provided in the schools,” Mboku says.

“Therefore, we decided to support these 4K Clubs to help schools have their own farm produce, both for consumption and sale.”

She says one school in each of Mombasa’s six subcounties has been identified in the pilot project for the nutrition in school.

The schools are Mwakirunge Primary in Kisauni subcounty, Fahari Primary in Mvita, Kwa Shee in Jomvu, Port Reitz School in Changamwe, Kadzandani in Nyali and Likoni Primary in Likoni.

“The government assured us that extension officers will be visiting the schools to see that the project for kitchen gardens is successful,” she says.

Rita Wanjiru, the Pwani Lishe Bora manager at Kanco, says the project to support schools was started last month.

“We felt it was necessary to transfer the skills to the children. We, therefore, agreed to have one school in each of the six subcounties of Mombasa and support their 4K Clubs,” she says.

She says they expect the programme will be rolled out to all primary schools in Mombasa county in the near future.

“We are very hopeful that the structures within the schools’ administration will help this project succeed. We want it to be sustainable,” Wanjiru says.