Lady Ifeoma Atuegwu is the president and founder of Bina Foundation, a non governmental organisation that caters for children with special needs. In this interview with Uchenna Ezeadigwe, Atuegwu discusses what it takes for parents to care for their special disadvantaged ( physically challenged) children and the roles Bina foundation is playing to add value to the lives of the physically challenged.
Ma, could you briefly tell us about your organisation?
Bina Foundation is set up to empower and rehabilitate people with different types of disabilities, the blind, the deaf, and the physically and mentally challenged. In Bina Foundation, we are faced with the responsibility of saving lives of these children with special needs through education, financial support, and sporting activities, as well as social and economic training.
What activities do Bina Foundation has for these children with special needs?
We recently entered into Para sports for economic empowerment, so as to make them have some sense of belonging and self reliance. We also developed blind football for men and women. Bina Foundation, currently, is the only nongovernmental organization that has blind football for these children with special needs across the country. The foundation, also, a week ago, trained physically challenged persons in power lighting. They represented Enugu state and we got the highest number of medals from the south eastern zonal championship that was held recently.
Could you throw more light on the empowerment of these individuals in the areas of social and economic development?
We give them an all round rehabilitation. We have a legal unit that holds every week. In the unit, we educate them on what their rights are and how to form association to present their cases to the government. Where necessary, we assist, but we equally encourage them to go through the association to channel their problems. Again, we support them in education; for example, here in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, we have up to 20 students from Bina Foundation that are physically and visually impaired that gain admission; and also at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. What we do is to prepare them, admit them into schools, and teach them how to do Braille, so that they can use their fingers to read. We also teach them on how to use computer so that they can sit for computer based examinations in JAMB, and generally, encourage them to go back to school. The Nnamdi Azikiwe University and University of Nigeria also cooperate with us. Once our students have the required cut of mark, the universities assist them in getting admission without any hindrances.
Do you think parents have any role to play in the lives of disabled children?
Parents have a lot of roles to play because; most parents do not want people to know that their child is disabled. They hide them from people, withdraw them from social functions, but what we do here is that when we notice such development, we encourage the parents to bring their child to us for empowerment. Recently, some of them have joined us, because, we have to beg their parents to allow them go to school, and we are succeeding. However, it is very important that any parent who is faced with such challenges should at all times show love, care, empathy, and understanding to this child. Buy them gifts, take them out for vacation, art exhibition shows, organise birthdays and so forth.
People are expressing mixed feelings over NGOs of this nature. How is Bina Foundation different?
In every twelve, there is a Judas. Our foundation do not source fund from anybody. We use the family fund to run the foundation. We have a business and the business funds the foundation. There is no way we can ever use them to make money. We don’t even talk in that direction, because, all we want to do is that we want the best for any persons with disability. Anything that is good to them is what we go for. We don’t use government funds; not that we don’t need any, but so far, we just make do with what we have. If anybody is interested in helping us, they could help us; but we don’t go soliciting for funds to be able to run the foundation; rather, we use our own money. We sacrifice what we have to run the foundation.
President Buhari signed the bill for persons with disabilities. Do you think it’s a step in the right direction?
Definitely, it’s a step in the right direction. For instance, every public building should have a wheel chair access; at least, half of stair cases should be smooth for wheel chair patients to access; because, the physically challenged has a lot of problems going to higher institutions, when the classrooms are in third floor. They find it difficult going to class. So, the law is good. What we have to do is that the government has to enforce it, especially in public buildings.
What advice do you have for the society as regards stigmatization of these special children?
My advice is that people should understand that their child being challenged is not their making, but how their creator wants them to be. Somebody may be physically ok today, but he may wake up the next day and find himself on the wheel chair. One may wake up tomorrow and become disabled, that’s why one has to accept disabled persons and assist them. Again, we employ some of these disadvantaged persons after empowering them with skills. This is to show people that though they could be disabled, yet, they can still contribute their quota to the society. We encourage our friends and colleagues and other members of the society to also give them employment. We are happy that Anambra, Enugu and Ebonyi states have started employing people with disabilities. There is also the need to emphasize that these people are trained and have the brain for innovation.
