Special Olympics Zimbabwe, provides year-round sports training and the opportunity for competition in Olympic-type sports for adults and children with intellectual disabilities.
testimony
- Other Initiatives:
Wednesday December 13th 2006
Dear Bonny Woodman
I did send Blessing Mukwanda's passport on Monday. He is one of the athletes to participate in the World Summer Games in China in 2007. During the procurement of the passport, I had the opportunity to spend five days with Blessing. It was then that I developed real insight into the needs and abilities of the mentally disabled pupils we have at Samaringa Primary School Reserve Unit and the pains of the peripheral treatment they get in many ways. Blessing Mukuwanda repeated Grade One twice owing to his mental disability. He first attended Grade One at Dangamvura Primary School in Mutare in 1996. He repeated the grade in 1997 at Gatsi Primary School in Honde Valley. In 1998 he re-enrolled in grade 1 at Samaringa Primary School. Before the Resource Unit for the Mentally Retarded pupil was opened in 2004, Blessing's attendance to school was quite erratic. Even up to now, at 17, Blessing cannot write his own name and until Special Olympics Zimbambwe chose him to participate in the World Games, he was subject of ridicule for other pupils, being the oldest in the school and "good for nothing."
His success at Special Olympics Zimbabwe this year earned him recognition not only with other pupils but with the local community and the Ministry of Education Sport and Culture and the Diocese of Manicaland. What is remarkable with his success in athletics is that he never had any training - it was just natural. How much more he would do with training! Blessing has never come to know his real mother and she remains a mystery as none of his family talks of her. The youth who ever-flows with energy is also bold in speech. One cannot shut him up and his speech is loaded with undertones of deprivation and discriminatory treatment at home. He lives with his stepmother at their rural home while his father, who is a guard with Mutare City Council, earning just $32 000 (about £5 per/month) stays in town. Three people seem to have lit a new life in Blessing in his understanding. These are "Bonny, the white woman who shook my hand and wants to take me to China by aeroplane," he always says, Mrs. Grace Mugabe who talked to him at the Danhiko Paralympics Games this year and also shook his hand and the last is Mr. Chigudu, the Governor of Manicaland for the procurement the passport.
Blessing's success has caused a stir in the local community. However, the same community has objected to paying a Resource Unit School levy which should have seen the construction of a classroom for the provision of resources for the eight children here. My stay with Blessing has developed a sharper interest in me in these children at my school and the need to improve their lot- an ominous responsibility. Only then have l understood the tremendous work that you are doing to make the lives of the mentally retarded to themselves, their families and their communities. God bless you that you may not tire or run out of resources. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year. Thank you for a list of material requirements for Blessing for consideration by Plan International.
Yours sincerely
Maurice Munzara
Headmaster Samaringa Primary School
