Olkokola Vocational Training Centre

I have had a week at my work place.  These are my first thoughts.

People with disabilities (PWD) have many challenges wherever they are living in the world.  In rural and remote east Africa these challenges are magnified.  There is often no surgical remediation available so congenital abnormalities such as cleft palates and club feet go unfixed.  Children born with disabilities are often seen as a curse and a burden.  In a few families they are cosseted and protected.  It is more common that PWD are kept hidden and put on ‘survival rations’ and left to endure as best they can.  Begging is seen as about the only form of income.  PWD are not valued in the community.

The Olkokola Vocational Training Centre (OVTC) is situated at the Olkokola Catholic Mission in Ngaramtoni on the outskirts of Arusha. It is a residential college.  OVTC has the specific mission of providing vocational skills to people with disabilities so they can return to their villages and be self sufficient.

The types of disability students at the centre live with are varied in severity and impact.  The most seriously affected are those with genetic conditions such as osteogenesis imperfecta.  Their life chances are seriously diminished.  Common disability types are congenital joint malformations like ‘club foot’ which causes mobility issues and a similar condition causing rotation of the hand at the wrist which causes even more challenges.  Severe burns and other wounds leading to scarring or amputation of limbs is another category of disability.  There are also students who have issues as a result of strokes.  Students may be able to access surgical intervention to address functionality of limbs where the benefit outweighs the risks of making things worse (for example amputation following infection after surgery).

Many of the students have had little formal education.  The disabilities they live with make it all but impossible to attend their local school.  Many students have no literacy or numeracy skills and some have limited spoken kiSwahili as the language spoken in the home is Maasai or kiIraki.  All these issues add to the challenges faced by the centre and its students, and informs the education intent and strategies offered at OVTC.     

The centre’s facilities are intentionally spartan.  The only ‘given’ is that conditions are hygienic.  No concessions in the form of ramps for those in wheelchairs or using frames or crutches are provided.  These students will be returning to a world where those conveniences do not exist so they must learn to be resourceful and adaptive in the world as it is.  Students must look after themselves.  They must be able to care for their personal needs and do all the cooking and cleaning necessary for a simple life. The rule is if you cannot cook you do not eat! All students take a turn rostered as ‘cook’.  For many students availability of food is the biggest change (and delight!).  At OVTC it is abundant and students can eat until they are no longer hungry, for many, for the very first time.

OVTC works on an apprenticeship model.  The occupations students are trained in are tailoring, carpentry, masonry and agrivet.  Training is entirely practical and competency based.  Students are shown a skill and they practice until they have it right.  Then they move on to a new skill.  The skills are all relevant to what will be needed back in their village - tailoring is for the garments they will be making when they return home, like school shirts, trousers and skirts, not haute couture.    That said the course would not limit graduates who showed imagination and flair in the garments they produced.

In the woodwork class all students are currently working on making upright chairs to the one, simple design.  There are templates for each of the parts showing the shape and where the mortise and tenons should be.  Students work at their own pace asking questions and getting assistance and reassurance.  This is a much smaller class than the tailoring group but has two students who are deaf/mute and instruction is all through example and miming.  For these students starting their own business may be problematic even with excellent wood working skills; they may need to seek employment with a sympathetic boss.  Certainly their work ethic is excellent.

The AgriVet class is more heavily theoretical than the woodwork or tailoring class.  students spend a lot of class time copying notes then discussing what it means.  One consequence of this is that students in this stream must be reasonably literate in Swahili and students who are not literate would be excluded.  Students were copying word by word and quite slowly so initially at least understanding is not there.  Students have the opportunity to ask questions, the content is repeated and students are assessed as to their understanding.  As it is a small class of four students this is feasible.  Of course there is also a large practical component and local farms can be used as well as the OVTC garden and animals. 

Students will also need some business skills if they are to be successful when they  return home.  Skills in business planning and money management as well as other personal and life skills can be taught.  The local government primary school provides adult education in literacy (kiSwahili) and numeracy several afternoons each week.

Success for this college is measured by how the students make out on their return to their village.  They are sent home after 18 months training with a full set of tools to start a small business.  Their progress is monitored over the next three years.  Studies by a US PhD student show positive outcomes.

Olkokola Catholic Mission also wants to change community attitudes to disability in the villages where it works.  This might be achieved by education so people know disabled children are not a curse from God and they shouldn’t be ashamed to have a disabled child.  Then children will be cared for and fed properly and not locked in the house.  If the children have the chance to go to school their life chances will be better.  Communities needing to see examples of people with disabilities working.  Graduating students should have the chance to exhibit their skills to their village and show what they can do/make.  Then they will be considered valuable members of the community and not looked down on or feared.

I have so much more to learn about this wonderful enterprise! Then I hope I will be able to add value to what is done here.