A father's painful struggle to secure daughter's special needs school
Joseph Otieno and his daughter during an interview at Nation offices on February 10, 2023.
Joseph Otieno sat looking downcast. The face of a man clinging to a glimmer of hope that someone will help bear the weight he carries, if only for a little while.
In 2013, his wife died after a long battle with cervical cancer leaving him as the sole caregiver of his daughter who lives with an intellectual disability. She cannot speak, suffers epilepsy and lacks control of her bowel movements.
For the past four years, Otieno has been on a mission to secure admission for his daughter to a special needs school. He says he has visited Mathari Hospital, Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital and even the Kenya Institute of Special Education to try and get a disability assessment report, but each attempt was futile. At Mathari, he says he paid the required fees Sh800, but instead of processing the report they referred him to Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital.
"I need help, I was at the governor's office today, but I was told he was not around," Mr Otieno told the Nation.
The report is required for Otieno's daughter to be registered as a person with disabilities. Once she is registered she will be able to access an education grant that covers up to 75 per cent of tuition fees and benefit from other similar services set aside for people with special needs.
As he is speaking, Juliet starts to throw a fit and she rolls on the ground. He attempts to feed her a bun and water trying to calm her but he fails.
He watches helpless as and tries to find something to distract her. Only a hardcover book settles her down albeit for a few minutes.
"This is what I have to go through every day and with my job it becomes very difficult. Sometimes, I skip work to just stay at home with her," he says.
Otieno, who lives at Baba Dogo slums, hawks groundnuts in the city. He says he makes between Sh200 to 300 a day.
He says this income is not sufficient to take care of his other seven children and to enroll his daughter in a private special needs school.
"Some people have asked me to go and drop her off at KNH and disappear but I can never live with myself if I did that," he says.
Otieno can be reached at 0725812518
