Children with special needs are those children born with rare medical conditions. Medical conditions such as the Down’s syndrome, physical disabilities, terminal illness and cognitive impairment are some of the examples of what constitute the children categorised as having special needs. These conditions make it an absolute necessity to support them in other to enjoy a decent and meaningful life. No doubt, taking care of children with special needs can be daunting both physically and financially on parents and carers. It therefore requires extreme care, patience and understanding of caregivers while handling these special children. Hence, in other to bring the best out of these children, they require an undivided attention.
Due to the dearth of awareness over the years, children with special needs have been denied the opportunity to have access to the kind of education that was available to children without medical challenges. Fortunately, with the improvement in the availability of information and enlightenment available across the globe, many educational institutions in the country are currently offering children with special needs the opportunity to be supported to achieve quality learning.
Despite these improved awareness in handling the demands of children with special needs, the society must recognise that a lot of efforts are still needed to keep these children to a level that they can become productive and contribute their own quota to the development of the country. This can become achievable when government at all levels pay more attention to creating an enabling system that will support the needs of these special children.
While the government’s role is sacrosanct, business organisations can support special needs children with funding, scholarship, educational aids amongst many other beneficial supports as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Similarly, philanthropic gestures from well-meaning Nigerians will also go a long way in providing special needs children with the much needed support to live a comfortable life.
Above all, children with special needs can become an integral part of the society if everyone contributes sufficiently towards their welfare. Indeed the life of every child matters and being supportive to one another is the core of our existence as humans. Special children deserve all the support they can get and that support must be sincere and unconditional.
