AFRICA HANDICAPPED INITIATITIVES DEVELOPMENT -“Showdoman Foundation"- Our organization pays special attention to children with disabilities, especially because the sooner help is provided, the better the prospects of success will be. In community-based rehabilitation programs, local rehabilitation workers visit families with disabled children in order to discuss possible development steps and objectives for the child. The parents learn exercises to promote the child‘s development, and progress is evaluated jointly. For many parents, it is incredible to see their children, who was unable to hold up their head, learn to sit up straight on their own. Even if special aids are not available, it is often possible to achieve a great deal with locally produced materials and some ingenuity. In poor and war-ravaged country like D. R. Congo, life with disability usually means life without education, employment, dignity or hope for the future. Most disabled children can’t go to school or play with their friends. Most disabled adults are unable to work and support their families. Seen as a burden, many disabled men, women and children live as outcasts, begging on the streets for survival.
But community-based rehabilitation goes beyond individual families. The rehabilitation workers encourage parents to seek contact with other parents facing similar challenges, to exchange experience and to support one another in difficult situations. Rehabilitation workers maintain contact with community decision-makers in order to raise awareness and to enable children with disabilities access to local facilities and to society.

Education as the key to development

Education is a key requirement for ensuring that children with disabilities can lead independent lives in the future. In D. R. Congo, the percentage of children with disabilities who receive basic school education is extremely low at present: Over 90% of disabled children/from disable parents are excluded from school education! A lot of time, you discover that when you go to public schools, we discovered that the pupils have no any physical problems and people assume that all these children are normal, but they have certain problems that are hidden. We refer to them as people with learning problem. Their teachers label them either as stubborn children or as truant persons out of ignorance.