The Omega Power Ministries (OPM) says it has established a free school for people with autism and down syndrome as part of effort to cater for children with special needs. General Overseer and Founder of OPM, Apostle Chibuzor Chinyere, said that the school, located in Port Harcourt, Rivers, was established to give such children a […]
The Omega Power Ministries (OPM) says it has established a free school for people with autism and down syndrome as part of effort to cater for children with special needs.
General Overseer and Founder of OPM, Apostle Chibuzor Chinyere, said that the school, located in Port Harcourt, Rivers, was established to give such children a sense of belonging.
Chinyere also said that the establishment of the school for autistic people was in line with OPM’s desire to have the children of the less privileged educated free of charge.
He said that the school would complement the OPM 15free regular primary and secondary schools located in different states in the country.
“The rich people whose children have these special needs take them to special schools.
“But the poor that cannot afford to send their children to these schools now see the children as hard luck; some abandon them somewhere.
“So in OPM, we decided to look for these kids and handle them with care using spiritual and physical means. We handle them with prayers.
“These children can be great but because of their special needs and conditions they are not very good in understanding things the way other children do, but they are very good with their hands.
“We want to concentrate on using their hands to create things.
“While we are backing them up with prayers spiritually, they will be healed by the Grace of God because there is nobody Jesus Christ cannot heal.
“That is why we are opening this free special school for children with special needs,” Chinyere said.
According to him, a recruitment process has begun to get the services of professional teachers who will concentrate on the children.
He assured that the school would spread to other parts of the country the way its free regular primary and secondary schools sprang up in parts of the country.
“We are starting recruitment of professional teachers that will concentrate on these children with special needs because it is not every teacher that can handle them.
“We also provide these children with free school uniforms, foot wears, school bags and back to school supplies, just the way we distribute freely to children in our 15 regular schools.
“Also, equipment for special needs schools were purchased and the children have improved on many skills they did not have before.
“This is happening in a short while of the school’s existence and most of them who weren’t talking or writing prior to their enrolment into the school have started talking and writing,” he added.
One of the teachers who overcame autism, Mrs Chiamaka Mbekwe, an organist with Masters Degree, also said that the children would overcome their conditions and be reintegrated into society.
Mbekwe said that the children were being given special attention to find out what worked for them or gave them excitement before they could be taught.
“We provide play-based interventions that combine behavioural and developmental approaches because the attention spans of most of them are short and their eye contacts are not so good,” she added.
It would be recalled that OPM also runs two free specialist hospitals in Rivers and Abia for the health needs of the less privileged.
