Friday, January 11, 2013

Rehabilitation

The rehabilitation center in Ghana is totally different from what I thought. It is a "vocational school like" training center rather than a health care institute. Disabilities there are trained to make shoes, clothes, bags and sell these productions. After graduate, the may find a job or start their own business. The goal of rehabilitation for disabilities in Ghana is to help them survive with their handicap. In the past, people, even disabilities themselves, thought they were useless. Now, what they want and they need to do is to do whatever they can to survive. Although their rehabilitation is different from ours, but it do improve the disabilities' quality of life.

Base on the family model in Ghana, it is easier for disabilities live with extended family, because the whole family can take care of them. However, extended families are always in rural places, where lack of health services. So it is not accessible for them to get formal and professional health care.

More over, because there is a gap between them and the "normal" world, even they were well trained, they still might not be accepted. As an OT student, I am supposed to help them do what they want to do, however, in Ghana, it is hard to be successful, because of the policy and the attitude of general public. For example, I can help a disabled child who want to be a teacher achieve the requirements to be a teacher, but it is hard for him to get a certificate and find a job. Thus, raising the awareness of the government and general public is really important.

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