Children with disabilities in Cameroon, the «Tutti Eguali» campaign to guarantee care and inclusion – breaking latest news

In the world more than 100 million children are disabled and they represent one of the most marginalized and excluded groups in many societies. Every day they are forced to deal with discrimination, with the lack of adequate policies and laws, which denies them the right to health care, education and in some cases even survival. Disability makes them fragile and vulnerable, exposing them four times more than their peers to the risk of suffering physical and psychological abuse. In particular, in Cameroonmore than 23% of children between the ages of 2 and 9 suffer from at least one type of disability caused, in 65% of cases, by infectious diseases that have not yet been eradicated such as polio, malaria, leprosy or measles .

Access to health services denied

To guarantee disabled children in Cameroon medical care and physiotherapy, education, nutrition, protection and social inclusion, Dokita is launching the All Equal Awareness and Fundraising Campaign again this year, which can be supported from 3 to 9 April 2023 with a text message or call the solidarity number 45580. But are children really all the same? actually being a disabled child in Cameroon, and in most of the world‘s poorest countries, it means ndo not have access to medical services, not being able to attend school and not being able to receive adequate nutrition. I am “invisible” children condemned to a future of marginalization and abandonment, also because it is often the families who push them away, both due to lack of economic resources and due to cultural heritage.

Raising awareness on topics

In Southern Cameroon there are two special places where, with care and dedication, people work every day so that all children are truly equal, despite their disability and extreme poverty. I am the Centers supported by Dokita, which has been present in Cameroon for over thirty-five years to guarantee the inclusion of disabled children, promoting their full participation in the socio-economic and cultural life of the community, through rehabilitation and socio-sanitary prevention, school education and professional training. A society’s ability to include its most vulnerable members, such as people with disabilities, measures the degree of maturity and development of society itself, explains Mario Grieco, director of Dokita Onlus.

This is even more true if we reflect on the fact that first of all, disability is a relative phenomenonis not absolute: a person can be considered disabled or not depending on the physical, cultural and mental barriers that society creates or breaks down in order to make its community more inclusive and welcoming. With the “Tutti Uguali” campaign, Dokita, in addition to concretely supporting projects in favor of disabled children in Cameroon, also intends invite all Italian citizens to reflect on the concepts of equality, parity and social inclusion which must be placed at the foundation of our life, he adds.

The Centers where 4,000 children are assisted

In Ebolowa there is the Foyer Pre Monticreated in 1984 to support and assist minors with disabilities in speech, hearing, vision and motor functions which, in addition to being equipped with an audiometric center and a physiotherapy rehabilitation room, also manages a school with personnel specialized in teaching disabled people. In Yaound, there is the Promhandicam Centre, which offers physiotherapy activities and runs the only school for blind children in Cameroon, who are taught the Braille method. Overall, these structures offer assistance to approximately 4,000 children with disabilities each year.

Rehabilitation and reception activities

Dokita’s All Equal Campaign aims to raise public awareness of the plight of children with disabilities living in developing countries, in order to combat inequality and thus contribute to the construction of a future in which they can have equal dignity and opportunities. In particular, the funds raised will serve to give continuity to the rehabilitation, reception and scholastic and nutritional support activities for disabled children in Cameroon, through the strengthening of the Centers supported by Dokita. From 3 to 9 April 2023 you can support the “Tutti Uguali” campaign with a text message or call from a landline to the solidarity number 45580. The value of the donation will be 2 euros for each text message sent from WINDTRE, TIM, Vodafone, Iliad, PosteMobile mobile phones , Coop Voice, Tiscali. It will cost 5 or 10 euros for calls from a TIM, Vodafone, WINDTRE, Fastweb and Tiscali landline and 5 euros for calls from a TWT, Convergenze, PosteMobile landline. Campaign partners are RAI for Sustainability, Mediafriends, La7 and Sky for Social.

The humanitarian organization

Dokita an Italian humanitarian organization that opear in the field of international development cooperationborn in the 70s from a group of volunteers in order to support the humanitarian works of the missionaries of the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Conception in the world. It currently operates in 14 countries (Cameroon, Congo RD, Nigeria, Senegal, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Honduras, Peru, India, Philippines, Albania, Croatia and Italy), providing assistance every year to more than 20,000 people, of which 7,000 with disabilities, to whom it ensures health care, education and food through its own physiotherapy structures, special schools and reception centres. The name Dokita is a loanword to the lexicon of the Bulu language of Cameroon of the German word Doktor (Cameroon was a German colony), which indicates the doctor, the doctor, but also the man of medicine, the healer. Dokita is the name that the local population gave to Brother Clemente Maino, religious and missionary of the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Conception (CFIC), who at the end of the 70s brought treatment and medical assistance for leprosy patients.