Day 8

Today I got to help set up for the promoters orientation. About twelve people traveled from the surrounding countryside to attend orientation. Some traveled as long as four hours! I arrived at the office early and helped draw all the different pictures to show Downs Syndrome and other forms of intellectual disabilities. I also wrote all of the symptoms on big pieces of paper. Apparently there’s a huge problem with women in the countryside not understanding the causes of intellectual disability. While they’re pregnant, many women drink alcohol and use cocaine. It’s pretty sad because that means a lot of the problems with their kids are totally preventable.

The job of these promoters is to go and educate the women in the countryside. We also worked on stereotypes with the physically and intellectually disabled people. The program is trying hard to reintegrate these people into the community but there is a great deal of discrimination. In the countryside, a lot of kids also become disabled after being severely beaten as infants or toddlers. Next Friday I’ll actually get to go out with the Caritas staff and see the promoters in action. I am, however, slightly concerned about this. We started the orientation with a little true or false quiz which most of the people failed. So even among the educators, there needs to be more education. Still, this is way more progress than they’ve seen…ever.

It’s also ingenious to use people from the respective communities so 1) it doesn’t appear like condescending people coming in from outside dictating everything 2) the promoters can keep an eye on things all-year round. This is definitely the solution for rural communities.