Our circumstances

The mother eagle teaches her little ones to fly by making their nest so uncomfortable that they are forced to leave it and commit themselves to the unknown world of air outside.  And just so does our God to us.

 Hannah Whitall Smith

Lately I have been thinking a lot how God uses our circumstances to teach us His lessons.

Compared to most people I work with, or just live with here in Tena, my circumstances are luxurious.

I have so many things that they lack. Or am able to do so many things they can only dream of.

Like walking, and talking and being independent.

So, do I have a right to be unhappy or need more? Is that justified in front of God?

Nick Wujicik, a pastor and motivational speaker with physical disability, said in one of his videos not to compare our suffering to other people's suffering.

I think that is a very wise concept.

In front of God, every pain is valid. He loves us all as we are.

And He seeks us to be better and rise above the circumstances, no matter what they are.

What I really love about this job is how I'm blessed with a spot to see how people rise above their circumstances.

Like the baby eagles, they soar throught the sky and I have been, even a small, part of it.

That is the biggest treasure for me.

I really do think, that many times, the best cure is not to think about myself but concentrate on others and how I can help them.

And again, something that Nick said, "Be the blessing to others".

Visiting Papanku, Notuno and Alto Pano

Today I visited three different schools and communities. First one was Papanku in Pueblo Kichwa de Rukullacta. Like they sais, very close to Archidona, only Ten hours on for though the jungle. I drove by car and it took about two hours and half but you have to go by Wamani because there's is no direct route.

The school is small, as the community. They don't have much but the parantaa had build a classroom for the programs use. Here is the special education teacher in her almost finished classroom (syillä need to finish one wall and nail some boards on the floor) with parents assotiations vicepresident.

After the visit we were offered herbal Tea with cookies at the school cafeteria. It is the sama thing that the students have for lunch.

After Papanku the next school in the schedule was Jorge Icaza Coronel in Nokuno community. Nokuno is also part of Publo Kichwa de Rukullacta but we had to return to Archidona and then head to Porotoyacu and from there we drove to Nokuno.

In the picture our clinical psychologist is Tallink with school's special education teacher. She only has one student and his condition is medical, so we urged her to talk with the boy's mother and get him to the nearest clinic. Hopefully that will happen soon.

From Nokuno we drove to Alto Pano community to visit Francisco Grefa school. In the picture you can see our new colaborator, missionary Hanna Erikson from Finland, with some students and a mother of a student.

Karina comes from a family with intelectual disabilities in different generations. Both her uncle and aunt have an intelectual disability and se does her cousin. Karina herself has behavioral issues and attention problems.

At the same time it's hard to see undiagnosed cases, ever misdiagnosis', many times abandon from parents. But sometimes you find a case like Alto Pano where Karina's family has been included in the community and they can feel accepted. This is why it is so important to carry on with work, so that Karina will have her own diagnosis and will be able to lead a good life.

Half of the disabled kichwa children and youth in Napo still without education

To be able to carry out our work it's necessary, if boring, to know some numbers. That is why FACE (Fundación Adelanto Comunitario Ecuatoriano) has carried out two cencuses of disabled children and youth, under 15 years old, of kichwa nationality in Napo province. 

The first cencus was done in the beginning of 2011 and the second one in the end of 2012. According to the cencus, done in 2012 there are 508 disabled kichwa children and youth in the three cantons, Tena, Archidona and Arosemena Tola of Napo province.

These children and youth are all situated in the area that is covered by Napo provinces Bilingual Education Departmen, DIPEIB-Napo. 46% of them are currently studing in school. Taking in consideration that Bilingual schools accept students from 2 years on, this means that a gross majority of children and youth that are of school age aren't recieving the education they are entitled to.

 Looking at the numbers we can see that almost half of them, 49% to be exact, has an intelectual disability. 21% has a physical disability and 10% has a disability related to language. 8% of them have an auditory impairment and 6% has a visual impariment.

At the moment DIPEIB-Napo has aproximately 30 teachers in 25 schools working with students with special needs. These students are situated in inclusive and special education classrooms in the regular school. In total DIPEIB-Napo has 114 school. The 255 children and youth that aren't reciving education live in different indigenous communities situated around the over 80 schools that aren't in the program.

This is the reason why a census is so necessary. We need information of where the disabled children and youth are exactly located and this way we can open new classrooms and ask for new teachers for them.