Beatrice, a 10 year old girl has an intellectual disability and lives with her parents. She is the first born and has one sibling. When she was born, she weighed 2kg. She couldn’t breast feed as she couldn’t suck until 5 months old hence also became sickly. She was delayed in development and everything had to be taught to her. Speech developed normally.
She was enrolled onto the home based education programme in 2015. Her challenge was low concentration and poor memory. Beautrice obeys instructions and is able to carry out simple house chores. She is able to write her name and is learning simple addition and subtraction. She even started school and is in grade 2. The family is supportive of her education and even neighbors have noticed the change.
Beatrice a lot of friends at school. She likes playing ball, cooking and ‘ciato’ (throwing and catching stones). Beatrice said ‘’nikonda kupunzila pakuti nikankale nanzelu pakuti nikankale apuzinsi’’ (I like learning because it will help me become intelligent and then I can become a Teacher).
The mother to Beauty, Ms Yvonne Siabasune said, ‘’Tifunika programme iyipitilile ndaba sembe anasalila, masiku yano ayamba kuonekako nanzelu.’’ (We would like the programme to continue because without it, she would have been left behind; her intelligence has improved).