Creating a uniform society for kids living with disabilities

Touch Life seeks to address issues of disabled and under privileged individuals living in and around the central region of Ghana. Often times these group are isolated and they hardly associate with the rest of the people due to their condition. Mostly such children do come from a deprived community which they hardly make a headway in life.

First of all, we have taken it upon ourselves to promote inclusion among the differently abled and the non differently abled children in the various communities. We do so by using sport as a tool to mobilize these children. We use sport such as swimming and other recreational activities to promote inclusion.

Again, other person's living with a disability and are not schooling are put to schools such as vocational schools or to learn a trade such as, seamstressing, shoemaking, carpentry, hair dressing, bakery etc. 

It's terrible to see the conditions of such families living in a deprived communities and such parents hardly afford three square meal per day. 

Other parents who could not learn a trade are supported financially to engage in a business in other to support their sustenance.

Touch Life would use first and foremost sports as a mobilization power to bring together the ordinary and differently abled children together, through these sporting activities we perform needs assessment so we can asertain such records of their needs. By so doing we are fostering inclusion which the differently abled children are deprived of.

Moreover, differently abled person's who would want to learn a vocation or a trade are supported with the necessary elements for them to be able succeed their vocational training or trading. Small businesses such as retailing etc. is one of the common businesses most of these indigenes are able to pursue. 

Other person's living with a disability who are interested in learning a skill such as; masonry, driving, barbering, shoemaking, hairdressing etc. Are supported to achieve these of objectives of Touch Life. 

Since we aim at reducing poverty in the deaf and blind communities in and around the central region of Ghana, we offer such opportunities for them to improve on their livelihoods in order to reduce the over dependency and be self reliance.

The business model serves serves children who are differently abled such as deaf and blind and intellectual and developmental disabilities kids. These ground of people in the regions where we operate unfortunately comes from a very challenging backgrounds and most of them are neglected due to their conditions. Most parents of such children find it difficult to even put their wards into school.

Our model would impact their lives positively since we have put in place stractures to lead us to this achievements.

For instance, the differently abled children such as the deaf and blind children are enrolled into schools if they're not yet in schools. In addition, we provide for them the necessary materials they need in order for them to be able to stay in school, hearing examination is the first step for deaf children to under go before they're admitted into the special schools. Aside all this due to their circumstances and the kind of society they come from, most of them are isolated. Due to that we have taken that upon ourselves to reach out to these schools to organize games and swimming lessons together with non blind and non deaf children. So that they are able to play together in order for us to achieve acceptance among themselves while promoting social inclusion. 

In order to sustain the parents of these children, we set them up for either vocation , business or trade. This is to help them sustain themselves financially so they are able to take responsibilities of their children while in school. 

Other deaf and blind youth who are also willing to continue their education or wanting to learn a trade are supported in that regard. By so doing these children who are learning a trade or business are capable financially due to the training they have acquired or businesses they ventured into due to our support.

On the other hand, the intellectual and developmental disability children are also supported through their schools and parents. Most parents are reluctant to bring such kids to school due to their condition. And organize a parental seminars to educate the parents on the need to put their wards into school and willing to accept their condition and treat them as such.

Most of these parent are supported with their businesses so they are able to sustain their businesses in order to take care of their wards. This means that when we are not operating in funds they can still cater for their wards in schools.

Aside this we organize a play sections where we do recreational games with these, autism, celebral palsy etc children together with the normal children so we can promote inclusion among themselves.

Our team in positioned in a way of delivering and taking into account monitoring and evaluation after the end of every quarter of engagement. We do observation of the businesses we have supported and the pupils we put into vocational training to monitor their progress so far.

Our team consist of project coordinator, head of programs, sign language interpreter, tutors in such special schools who assist us whenever we pay them a visit or whenever we go to do games. We society representatives who identify such problems and bring it to the board for discussion and try to find solutions to the identified challenge.

Our solution currently is serving not less than a 1000 children including those affected indirectly.

I'm applying to Solve because this is where change makers espoused their genuine solutions to a daring challenge at a particular field to help solve some of the world's problems. I see myself a change maker since I embarked on this journey of supporting and trying to find solutions to problems.

This solution is unique in the sense that, first and foremost we use sports as a tool to achieve our objectives. Since children have the zeal to play we engage them through that manner when they don't even realize the impact we're giving them. Through the play the deaf and blind and their counterpart who are non deaf and non blind come together to play in order for us to achieve our first goal, promoting inclusion and integration. By so doing these deaf and blind children who have been isolated and neglected and some bundled up in the school who have the opportunity to play with the other non deaf and non blind counterpart. It's very excited to watch to see these children communicating with each and some making friends. The blind children are only engaged in recreational activities and goalball while the deaf are engaged in soccer, volleyball, swimming etc.

The intellectual and developmental disability children are engaged in the classroom with audiovisual animation to learn and sing songs. aside that we also engage them in recreational games such as pick and act, lime and spoon, suck race etc.

From the challenges with which we developed this solution, we realized most if these deaf and blind and Intellectual and Developmental disability (IDD) children come from and deprived and challenging backgrounds. 

We seek to effect these lives, we seek to make a difference in the next couple of years where we find solutions to why people in challenging community give birth to children like this. The root course of it, whether it's genetic or poverty or hard condition which is exposed to the babies after birth.

We seek to develop such society, to effect them positively where the parent of such children are put in establishment to work and be sustain financially in order to reduce poverty in such groups.

We also seek to trains these children who are able to learn a trade such a barbering, shoe making etc in order for them to have the necessary skill to depend their livelihoods on instead of being on the streets begging.

A monitoring and evaluation is developed in order to keep track of the progress of each beneficiary. 

For social inclusion, we take note if their integration aspect, how both groups are integration and accepting each other for who they are. We have a tool which contains a series of questions for how each group feels about the other group before we start our engagement and in the quarter of the year assess them again and based on their previous answers and the current answers we could determine their level of acceptance towards each other while they play.

On the other hand, parent or youth deaf and blind who have been enrolled in a vocation would be monitored on weekly basis to know their challenges and finding solutions to them as well as noticing their progress level during monitoring.