areas that are working on behalf of children with disabilities. The organizations working directly and supporting children with disabilities realize that they don’t have the wherewithal to provide the adequate service to the children and recognize that children needs the community support to grow and develop to their full potential and enjoy all their rights. They, therefore, all use the CBR approach to rehabilitation. Using this approach, they engage teachers, parents and others to help stimulate and rehabilitate children with disabilities. BCVI is providing outstanding rehabilitation services to all known children with visual impairments throughout the country of Belize. BCVI makes great effort using creative strategies to raise funds and get support to sustain and expand its services offered to children in its rehabilitation program. Early stimulation and orientation and mobility training are provided for 100% of children known to BCVI unlike children with other disabilities that prevent access to education, e.g., intellectual problems and deafness. Most of the rehabilitation services are provided by a dedicated team of RFOs that is continuously being upgraded and are fully supported by management. Parents and children are continuously recognizing and acknowledging BCVI’s exemplary work in testimonials, discussions, and interviews. The author considers BCVI’s rehabilitation program exemplary in the Caribbean region based on the literature and on discussion with individuals who are familiar with the services offered in the region.
Lack of Resources One of the major limitations of all the caregiver organizations is transportation to reach the clients especially those in the rural areas. Another major specific limitation is insufficient personnel to service the needs in the communities. The general major limitation is the lack of financial resources to buy materials to support children, buy fuel and pay subsistence to reach children. If the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolutions on children with disability are to be
achieved, a formal disability structure must be established, and an agency responsible for persons with disabilities must be in place. There is limited collaboration between organizations that are working for children and adults with disabilities. Children are referred to one NGO to another NGO and to government department and vise versa and from NGOs to international organizations. For example, children are referred from BCVI’s and government health clinics to BCVI’s NEC, from teachers to CARE Belize, from CARE Belize to BCVI and to KHMH, and from Human Develop Department to Hand-in-Hand Ministries.
Education Even though the Families and Children Act states that “The State shall take appropriate steps to ensure that children with disabilities are afforded equal opportunities to education” one or two schools have to be coaxed to accept children who are blind and visually impaired and in many cases the teacher is not skilled to adequately guide the individualized intellectual development of the child. One parent expressed her dissatisfaction with the help her child was getting from her teacher and wanted to withdraw her child from school. All children with visual impairments are included in education when they don’t have any other disability or their main disability is sight. However, there are challenges which include untrained teachers to deal with the individualized needs of these children, many classes are not conducive to learning (large classes), lack of parental support in a few cases, and inadequate support from NaRCIE. A major limitation in meeting the educational needs of children is the lack of trained teachers. Most of the teachers are not trained enough to effectively teach their students with visual impairments. A complimentary limitation is the use of an outdated curriculum. NaRCIE does assessment of disabilities for all sectors of the society. It does it to determine if students have disabilities and if so what are the
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